Why Bother? - Ken Block
Ken Block, MINDSETTER™
Why Bother? - Ken Block
Speaker Shekarchi and Senate President Ruggerio established ground rules for the committee that prevented legislators from asking essential questions. “What caused the bridge to fail?” Nope. “Who at RIDOT failed to do their job?” No way. “Why did so many maintenance issues appear to be neglected on the bridge for years on end?” Fuhgeddaboudit. These questions define what effective oversight should be.
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The committee members were given suggested questions to ask RIDOT Director Alviti. Is it possible that the wrong people were asking questions if they did not know what questions to ask? Why not hire an expert on bridge disasters to ask questions on behalf of the committee? Were the suggested questions provided to Director Alviti before the hearing? Isn’t the point of an oversight hearing to probe the issue in front of the committee?
Of course, the answer to the above is that our state's leaders are conspiring to cover up the identities of those who doomed the bridge by failing to do their jobs. The governor and legislative leadership are protecting political insiders and special interests.
The Attorney General is pressuring many contractors to the RIDOT to cave to a lawsuit that attempts to blame those contractors for the bridge's failure. All public evidence shows that the bridge was in trouble for more than a decade before it failed and that required maintenance and critical repairs had been deferred for a long time—probably too long.
In some well-run states, my company has held contracts as the prime contractor for EBT (electronic welfare benefit distribution) systems. We were not fully paid for the work delivered until the state accepted our work as complete after extensive testing. Once the work was accepted, the state could only ask my company to modify the deliverable via a change order, which usually involved paying more money. This is the standard way state contracting works.
It is unclear what, if any, efforts RIDOT makes to ensure the quality of the work its contractors perform. If the RIDOT accepts construction work as complete without the proper due diligence, it is a failure of the RIDOT to do its job.
The oversight committee should have asked questions like: “Who at RIDOT was responsible for testing and accepting work on the failed Washington Bridge over the last ten years?” “Show us the documentation for the testing performed for all work done on that bridge.” “Can RIDOT say with certainty that the materials used in our road and bridge construction, things like concrete and asphalt, are of the proper quality? Did RIDOT employees perform these tests? If not, why?”
This bridge did not experience a sudden, catastrophic event that caused its demise, as Director Alviti claims happened when he said a “large truck” broke the bridge. He knew this bridge was in trouble since he became Director in 2016. The evidence is in the public record. If a large truck did break the bridge, should the bridge have been posted to prohibit those large trucks from using it, as was suggested by RIDOT contractors in 2012, 2015, and 2016?
The decay evident throughout the failed bridge did not happen overnight. It was decades in the making—all under the nose of the RIDOT.
We are watching the whitewashing of an avoidable disaster in real-time. No elected or appointed official is doing anything to provide critical answers and accountability to the public. Not Governor McKee. Not Speaker Shekarchi. Not Senate President Ruggerio. Not Attorney General Neronha. Certainly not RIDOT Director Alviti.
Unfortunately, our elected officials are not moved by opinion pieces, news coverage, individual acts of bravery by a few legislators, or a handful of experts pointing out the errors made. The only way we will get answers is for the public to show up at the state house and make a lot of noise. This is how the RI government works—if the public is apathetic, it loses. Special interests rule the roost in Rhode Island because they show up.
Anyone with me?