McEuen Bridge surprise

Well! Well! What a surprise. Or is it? I believe all this boils down to pure incompetence in the bid, evaluate and commit cycle (BEC).

I initially emailed the Cd'A Press on Feb. 21 when I read an article about the Public Information Officer (PIO). In this article, numerous dates were outlined for the BEC cycle and construction commencement. I noted there were two dates that would cause an issue, namely "Bid opening on March 5" and "Council vote to award on March 7."

With a project of this complexity - and the prior knowledge of the issue on the deviation of the bridge design basis - there was only one solution. Revise the design basis, re-issue of the bid documents and lengthen the period of evaluating the bid. A two-day timeframe to completely evaluate all bids is impossible to achieve. At this time, I believe the project team still needs to determine why ITD are involved in the design basis.

Multiple pay items in this bid should have been normalized between all contractors to ensure that there was a level playing field in the bids. It was also critical to ensure that all items in the bid request were fully covered and the work scope was clearly understood.

Prior to the bid opening, I communicated with the city administrator regarding the PIO position, duly noting many potential pitfalls that could occur and the importance of mitigating them prior to award. I followed up on my email but got no answer prior to attending the March 7 meeting. This meeting was really a "nothing" meeting where some council members were clearly hellbent to award the work.

One council member suggested Team McEuen should be praised for their diligence and hard work; he admitted that he did not understand what work was being performed, but he proceeded to vote in favor of award.

After the meeting, I was asked as an aside to provide possible major pitfalls in the bids. I explained clearly that I did not know anything about the documents that were issued or received. However, I did provide multiple suggestions, which to my knowledge were not used. I base this on my request to let me know how these were used. I saw nothing!

I attended a council meeting on March 17 and put forward many issues that I had noted, which appeared to have been ignored. Only one comment came back from a council member: He suggested I was stonewalling. I explained to the council that I saw great potential for an increase in the contract value due to the poor effort that had been made in evaluating the bids.

Since that time, I have been receiving the construction updates. They really don't say very much, so I have again offered suggestions. I have also picked up errors explaining the work. They now seem to have struck me off the list to get this update.

All in all, I see a project that has been - and is continuing to be - a poorly managed project. This often provides a good opportunity for the contractor to make some significant claims with associated cost over-runs. This controversial project needs some serious changes to hopefully ensure no further increases occur. The team does not appear to have any idea on how to measure the contractor progress or performance or even how to notify the public what is going on. This creates a golden opportunity for a sharp and successful contractor.

Terry Beckford is a retired engineer living in Post Falls since 1999. For 35 years, he worked for Bechtel, one of the world's largest engineering and construction companies. Before retiring, Beckford was Bechtel's worldwide manager of the Estimating and Project Controls Department of the company's mining group.