In the early morning hours of April 13, 1992, in the heart of Chicago’s downtown Loop, the Chicago River broke through the masonry of an old railroad tunnel built in the last century. Several hundred million gallons of water from the river were diverted from Lake Michigan into the basements of downtown office buildings, knocking out boilers, short-circuiting countless electric switches, ruining computers, and turning files into wet pulp. Total losses were over $1 billion.

Several weeks before the accident, the leak in the tunnel had come to the attention of John Laplante, Chicago’s transportation commissioner, a public servant with thirty years of exemplary service. He knew that the river was immediately overhead and that a break could be disastrous. He ordered his engineers to shore the tunnel up. As a prudent administrator, he also asked how much it would cost. The initial guess was about $10,000. His subordinates then went to a reputable contractor, who quoted $75,000. Although the amount was a drop in the bucket in his huge budget, the discrepancy, seven times the original estimate, gave Commissioner Laplante pause. He knew exactly what to do. He put the job out for competitive bids.

Two weeks later, before the process had even begun, the ceiling collapsed.

I'd like to think the PUD will learn from the lesson and kick-up its emergency contracting provisions, but I am skeptical.

I meant with other PUDs. Crews from all over this state and from out of state came and worked. There were already procedures in place. There were no problems with any of the public entities OR with any other private entities. Only one tripled rates and created new rate catagories never before charged like the $98 per hour bookkeeper (16 hours a day 7days a week... thank you PUD Ratepayers!).

I'd be interested in seeing the PUD's general and supplemental conditions of the Contract used in the event. My experience is the PUD's homespun documents address only a fraction of procurement issues.

I will yield to your knowledge however as I only have personal experience with the documents related to building procurement. The line guys may have a whole different set of documents controlling the Contract.

The PUD never submitted any Spradlin invoices because the PUD knew they were bad. When the FEMA yahoos were in the district looking at invoices, they came across some Spradlin invoices and sent a check for them. But, they were never submitted by the PUD. It would have been unethical to submit to the Federal taxpayers the tainted invoices submitted to the GH Ratepayers.

If the PUD knew the invoices were bad, why did the PUD wait to after FEMA denied the PUD’s claims for reimbursement to “[d]o not pay” on all Spradlin unpaid invoices?

I have no idea about what you speak.

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