McKee’s Washington Bridge RFP Was Flawed From the Beginning - Ken Block
Ken Block, MINDSETTER™
McKee’s Washington Bridge RFP Was Flawed From the Beginning - Ken Block
This is a shocking situation. RIDOT invited thousands of companies to review the bid documents, and fewer than 70 did so. One company submitted questions. No one read through the documents and thought bidding would be wise.
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This is a crisis contracting scenario, or at least the federal government was willing to consider the failed bridge a crisis for contracting purposes. A vendor was already working on the bridge when it was closed. That company could have been engaged on the spot to begin rebuilding the bridge immediately. Governor McKee and the RIDOT thought differently, opting to take the much slower approach to bidding out the job and the even slower approach to needing to bid out the job multiple times.
Governor McKee, who has struggled not to step on his own feet when discussing the bridge, blurted out this buffoonery when asked about the unanimous rejection of the state’s project by every construction firm: “We kind of expected that.” Are you kidding me? Those crossing this bridge regularly spend hours a week stuck in traffic jams, and the McKee administration released an RFP to rebuild the bridge, which they expected would get no responses. Who thought that this was a good idea?!
Every person who works in Rhode Island government and believed the bridge RFP would not receive a single response should be politely but firmly asked to leap off the bridge for allowing this deficient RFP to go out the door.
The contracting and legal environment for working with RIDOT is not a pleasant one for contractors. Companies routinely have to sue the RIDOT to receive full payment for their work. A dozen companies (many of which might have bid on the bridge rebuild project) have received notices that the DOT may legally go after them for the bridge failure. Governor McKee has failed to provide any accountability for the RIDOT's role in the bridge failure. Why would any company willingly subject themselves to the RIDOT experience?
It is bad enough that the RIDOT did not properly maintain the bridge or proactively determine it was failing. Now, we pay the price because the RIDOT put together an RFP that was so deficient that no one would bid on it.
For the RIDOT apologists who claimed that cleaning house at the RIDOT would imperil the bridge rebuild project, you could not have been more wrong. We have jeopardized the bridge rebuild project by keeping the inept RIDOT management in place.
It is time for Governor McKee to lead. Clean up the RIDOT – now. This is all on you, Dan. No one in RIDOT management should keep their jobs. No one. We all get it – the labor unions have showered your campaign with cash, and they like the RIDOT just as it is. Who are you accountable to, Guv?
Governor McKee is clearly not committed to resolving this crisis as quickly as possible. If he were, he would never have allowed an RFP to be published that he knew would receive no bids.
We deserve much better than we are getting from the governor and his Department of Transportation.