[Mintwood-place] Report on DDOT documents and meeting

[Polscm at aol.com]

Dear Neighbors:

Three of us (Eddie Becker, Brian Weaver, and me) visited DDOT's offices on 
Tuesday and reviewed a number of the DDOT documents pertaining to the Mintwood 
project. DDOT was very helpful in providing us with access to a number of 
important documents as well as three people who had a great deal of institutional 
knowledge about how the DDOT process works and who could answer many of our 
questions. (Eddie and Brian, please chime in if I have overlooked or misstated 
any thing or if you have additional insights.)

We were able to gain a clearer picture of the process which led to the 
problems on Mintwood Place. In a nutshell, authority has been distributed among 
various District offices, with a lack of coordination among the offices and a 
strict compartmentalization of functions. This diffusion of authority explains 
some of the problems with the Mintwood project. But unfortunately it also means 
that the people with whom we have been talking had little to do with the 
planning side of the Mintwood project and therefore could not answer all our 
questions.

With that caveat, the following is what we learned about the Mintwood 
project:

1.  Project Funding: The Mintwood project is funded by "Barney Circle" funds. 
In late 1997, the city council killed the proposed Barney Circle project for 
environmental reasons. This federal highway project, on the drawing boards for 
some 20 years, was to connect I-395 and I-295 (Anacostia Freeway) together by 
building a new bridge across the Anacostia River in the Barney Circle area of 
Southeast Washington. The transportation objective of this $200 million 
federal project was to allow vehicles to slice diagonally across the District on 
linked interstate highways. Congress had appropriated $173 million in federal 
funds for this project, along with a District match, for a total of about $200 
million in funds. 

In 1998, Congress officially terminated the Barney Circle project and 
redirected or reprogrammed the $200 million in funds, allowing the District to spend 
those funds on other local road projects. At the same time, Congress also 
required the District to contractually obligate all of the $200 million in funds 
by September 30, 2002. With this "use it or lose it" deadline, some of the 
Barney Circle replacement projects may have been conceived in haste or may not 
have been planned as carefully as they could have been . . . 

2.  Project Selection and Design: Some time after 1998, DDOT developed plans 
to distribute the $200 million in Barney Circle funds to various street and 
bridge projects in the District, with $11.5 million of that amount eventually 
allocated to a package of about 20 small street projects in Ward 1. The three 
people we met with on Tuesday are all part of DDOT's Infrastructure Project 
Management Administration (IPMA). IPMA's role includes overseeing implementation 
of and compliance with the District's construction contracts. As best as we 
could determine, IPMA was not involved in selecting or designing the project, 
developing the contract, or selecting the contractor. As a result, the IPMA 
staffers with whom we met could not provide much detail about the planning side of 
the project as it was outside of their bailiwick.

Some time in the 1999-2001 period, DDOT selected various streets in Ward 1 
for improvement. After those decisions were made, DDOT's engineering office 
developed technical specifications for the proposed work. Those specifications 
were detailed as to new lights and catch basins for Mintwood Place and the other 
streets covered by the Ward 1 project. Those specifications were also detailed 
as to generic construction standards for the roads and sidewalks in the Ward 
1 projects but did not include separate construction plans for each of the 
streets (except for the lights and catch basins). My guess is that the Mintwood 
project (along with the other Ward 1 projects) was included in the District's 
Capital Improvement Plan and at some point approved by the city council and 
Congress but probably was not listed as a specific line item but rather was 
included in a line item for a group of projects. 

During our DDOT visit, we could not determine who selected each of the Ward 1 
projects or what process and standards were used to decide what work would be 
done on each of the streets selected for improvement. Those decisions were 
made in other DDOT offices.

3.  Selection of Contractor: At some point in the 1999-2002 time period, the 
technical specifications developed by engineers for DDOT were turned over to 
the District's Office of Contract and Procurement (OCP) (probably in late 2001 
or early 2002 but possibly earlier). OCP converted DDOT's engineering 
specifications into a Request for Proposals (RFP) which covered all of the 20 or so 
Ward 1 projects. The RFP designated two of the Ward 1 street projects as 
reconstruction projects and all of the other projects as resurfacing projects. Most 
of the Ward 1 resurfacing projects apparently included replacing the street 
lights and the catch basins as well as resurfacing the street. The Mintwood 
project was originally designated as a resurfacing project and was transformed into 
a reconstruction project only after problems emerged during the initial 
stages of work.

OCP issued the RFP in two thick volumes on April 8, 2002, and solicited bids 
from construction firms, receiving bids some time in the summer of 2002. The 
bids consisted of a long list of items associated with the requested 
construction work and estimated numbers of item and the price for each item required to 
complete the construction work covered by the RFP. Examples of contract items 
include cubic tons of concrete, lamp poles, square feet of brick paving, feet 
of curb stone, and so on. The bid price for all 20 Ward 1 projects was 
calculated by multiplying the estimated number of each item to be provided times the 
bidder's price for the item in question and then totaling those numbers. The 
contract between the District and the contractor consists primarily of the 
District's RFP and the successful contractor's bid submission.

Based on this process, OCP selected Lane Construction Corp. as the successful 
bidder. OCP apparently did so without consulting with DDOT as DDOT is not a 
part of the selection or contracting process. The only other bidder listed on 
the bid tally sheets that we saw was Fort Myer Construction Corp. Fort Myer was 
debarred by the U.S. Department of Transportation (for bribing District 
engineers and inspectors to inflate the amount of asphalt deliveries) on June 10, 
2003, and is not eligible for any new federally funded contracts for a 
three-year period (2003-06). The difference between the Lane and Fort Myer bids was 
small: Lane's bid for the 20 or so Ward 1 projects was about $11.54 million 
while Fort Myer's was about $11.57 million. The paperwork provided by OCP to DDOT 
did not list any other bidders.

Under normal District practices, a contractor may exceed the face amount of a 
contract by as much as 10% if the District approves a change order. A change 
order would cover any changes that are necessary to deal with issues arising 
during construction which cause total spending to exceed the face amount of the 
contract. For example, the Mintwood project required the contractor to 
install more square feet of brick and pour more tons of concrete than was assumed by 
the contract, thereby significantly increasing the spending planned for the 
Mintwood project and leaving the District without sufficient funds to cover the 
costs of all the other Ward 1 construction projects. 

In this case, however, that $11.54 million is the absolute maximum that can 
be paid to Lane because the funding source is the Barney Circle funds and the 
District has not provided funds for cost overruns. The extra work done on the 
Mintwood project means that some of the other projects on the Ward 1 list 
either will not be fully implemented or will be implemented by finding alternative 
revenue sources to cover the extra work. Based on what was said to us, it 
appears likely that DDOT will try to find the additional funds and make every 
effort to complete all the proposed Ward 1 projects even if the total cost exceeds 
the $11.5 million in the Lane contract.

Finally, WASA and DDOT negotiated a side agreement under which WASA agreed to 
pay the District $160,000 to cover the cost of the additional work done on 
Mintwood to replace the lead pipes (the cracking of the new concrete pad, etc.)

4.   Coordination with Utilities: At some point in the process, officials 
from another DDOT office–the Public Space Management Administration–met with 
representatives of the utilities that would be affected by the Ward 1 
construction projects. The utility representatives were told which streets were scheduled 
to be redone and asked whether changes needed to be made in the utility lines 
and pipes below the surface of the streets. The utilities grant "releases" to 
DDOT, essentially telling DDOT to proceed with the construction project 
without providing for any changes in the utilities. Apparently, the tendency of the 
utilities is to grant releases without investigating whether changes are 
needed because they prefer not spending money on fixing or upgrading underground 
facilities. In the Mintwood case, for example, it was DDOT which discovered 
that the gas lines were not buried far enough below the surface of the road, 
requiring that the gas lines be replaced, etc. It was not clear to us exactly 
which utilities were involved in this phase of the process. The IPMA 
representatives mentioned Washington Gas and PEPCO as participants but did not say anything 
about the involvement of WASA, Verizon, Comcast, or Starpower. We will 
probably need to speak to Public Space representatives if we are interested in 
finding out more about WASA's role in planning the project. 

5.  Inspection of Construction: The inspection work on the Mintwood Place 
project (and all the Ward 1 projects) is done by KCI Technologies, a 
Baltimore-based engineering firm with a large contract with the District to "inspect" 
District road projects. Apparently the District has privatized some or all of 
DDOT's inspection work. A big part of the inspection process is to confirm how 
many of each of the items covered by the contract were installed on a given day 
(e.g., the number of light poles installed, the tons of concrete poured, the 
square feet of brick laid). We reviewed the daily inspection sheets submitted to 
DDOT by KCI Technologies for Mintwood Place. Those sheets contained little 
information about the problems encountered on Mintwood Place, instead focusing 
primarily on quantifying the work completed by the contractor on the day in 
question. That information is then used to calculate how much should be paid to 
Lane for its work. The latest paperwork (through July) indicated that Lane has 
been paid about $7 million for its work on the Ward 1 contract or about 60% of 
the face amount of the contract.

We were unable to review the KCI Technologies contract as we did not know 
about it beforehand and therefore had not requested it. We did learn that KCI 
Technologies does a great deal of work for DDOT and that its contract with the 
District may be lucrative. It is our understanding that KCI Technologies may 
earn as much as 15% of the face amount of the contract for the construction work 
that it is responsible for inspecting. Under this arrangement, KCI 
Technologies could earn as much as $1.5 million for its inspection work on the $11.5 
million for the Ward 1 projects.

As was noted earlier, we did not see the paperwork for the KCI contract so we 
were not able to figure out exactly how payments to KCI Technologies are 
calculated. We did see a DDOT "task order" for the September 20 through December 
31 time period, which entitled KCI Technologies to bill the District for as 
much as $700,000 for inspection work to be performed over a little more than 3 
months. We also learned that there are 3 KCI inspectors and a manager who handle 
all the inspection work on Lane's Ward 1 contract.

6.  Final Adjustments and Repairs: DDOT withholds 10% of the face amount of 
the contract and does not pay Lane that amount (that would be $1.5 million of 
the Ward 1 work) until the contractor has made all necessary adjustments and 
repairs. This is the point in the process at which the broken street light on 
Mintwood Place would be fixed and so on.

Davis-Bacon Issues:

A compliance officer visited the work site last week and made a determination 
that Lane was in compliance with Davis-Bacon regulations except for failing 
to post a sign which specifies the Davis-Bacon wages to which the workers on 
this project are entitled. We continue to have concerns as to whether the 
workers on this project are being paid in accordance with Davis-Bacon rules. A 
central question is whether the workers have been properly classified or whether 
they have been assigned to lower-paying job classifications which do not 
accurately reflect the work actually being performed by these workers. 

* * * * * *

While we learned quire a bit as a result of our visit, we were not able to 
find out much about the process which resulted in the selection of Mintwood 
Place for construction work or the process which resulted in the specification of 
improvements to be made to Mintwood. Speaking generally, it seemed to me that 
residents of the street should have been notified at some point early in the 
planning phase of the process so that we could have had an opportunity to 
provide feedback.

Examples of items that perhaps would have been reviewed more closely if 
residents of the street had had a chance to provide feedback in the early stages of 
the process include: (1) the number and placement of the new street lights on 
the street; (2) the number of tree boxes (e.g., should more trees be planted 
on the street?); and (3) updates to the utilities beneath the street and 
sidewalks. One example of the latter issue is the absence of underground conduit 
for lines for Comcast, Starpower, and other potential communications service 
providers. (I am not certain as to whether Verizon's lines have been installed 
underground on Mintwood Place.) On the south side of the block, for example, 
Comcast runs its lines behind buildings and through the park, using jerry-rigged 
connections (partially explaining the frequent outages). Perhaps even more 
important, we do not have access to service from Starpower (while residents of 
Columbia Road do) because the cost of running an underground line from Columbia 
Road down Mintwood is seen by Starpower as too high. This reconstruction 
project seems like an ideal time to so things like install communications conduit. 

These are just a few of the items that could have been addressed in the 
planning process (as well as the lead pipes, etc.) No doubt, others can think of 
other items that should have been addressed in the planning process.

Sorry about the length of this message but unfortunately there are no simple 
answers to our questions. . . 

Cynthia Pols
phone: (202)328-0654
fax: (202)265-2490
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