Special Meeting on Beach Project Costs or CC holds SM on GMP for BRP and CRP

Photography by Stacie Lee

On Tuesday, February 28th at 6:00 PM, the City Commission will hold a Special Meeting to approve the latest Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) for the Beach Re-Development Project (BRP). This is the part of the project that DOES NOT include anything related to the Casino Re-Something Project (CRP). It's an open meeting. The public may attend and may be allowed to comment.

The first GMP was $5,000,000 but that was before it was called a Guaranteed Maximum Price. That's back when it was called a campaign promise. You know, that thing about the Beach Re-development Project not costing the voters, I mean the taxpayers, of Lake Worth one dime above the $5,000,000 bond money from the County. Remember that?

Remember back in 2006 when the taxpayers of Lake Worth had $3,620,800 socked away in a Beach Fund to add to the $5,000,000 County bond money to do something really nice up at the beach? And then somehow that money was all gone and in 2010 we had to sign a new Interlocal with the County saying we were not going to be bringing any of our own money to the table and the County said OK, we'll give you the $5,000,000 anyway, but this time, ya gotta do all the nice stuff ya say you're gonna do in this new agreement and ya gotta do it on time and ya gotta PROVE that you've actually done what you say you will. 

And Oh By The Way, we're not coughing up one nickel of this $5,000,000 unless you do and if you don't meet every single milestone for every single condition, we're gonna hafta force you to return whatever we have given you plus interest, and the City said OK. Huh? Remember that?

Ok, So then the City established something called the Guaranteed Maximum Price for the Beach Re-development Project and bid the thing out for a willing contractor to do all this wonderful stuff. Morganti Group, Inc. was awarded the bid. But, Oops-A-Daisy, there were a few little things left out and the Guaranteed Maximum Price went up a few times as more little things were remembered. The last Guaranteed Maximum Price was $6,424,000.

On Tuesday night, the Commission will learn the new Guaranteed Maximum Price for the Beach Re-development Project is $6,712,591; that's $288,591 more than the last Guaranteed Maximum Price and $1,712,591 more than the campaign promises.

Just to make it all even more confusing, on Tuesday night, the City, in response to Commissioner Maxwell's inquiry, is affirming that Bank of America is still "committed" to loaning Lake Worth taxpayers $6,000,000 at 4% interest to cover the cost of the Casino Re-Something Project. This affirmation has come from the City's Financial Advisor, PFM, Inc. and I don't know what that cost, but I imagine a financial advisory firm doesn't work for free. 

And to really mix it all up, the City, also in response to Commissioner Maxwell's inquiry, has offered two options for hiring an independent overlord to watch the costs of the Casino Re-Something Project. One of those options will cost $100,000 to hire a City employee and the other option will cost maybe 10% of the CRP "budget", or somewhere upwards of $600,000 because, I also imagine, 10% of the project's "budget" is probably pretty standard for what a professional financial advisory firm might charge for that service.

Not surprisingly, the City prefers not to hire an independent overlord to watch the progress and spending on the Beach Re-development Project but to continue with the oversight our current in-house Project Manager and Assistant City Manager, Kathleen Margoles, has provided.

In an attempt to see just where and how the Guaranteed Maximum Price for the Beach Re-development Project has ramped up 34% over the bond money, the Commission asked to see the sub-contractor bids Morganti received for all those little extras that somehow escaped anyone's notice. So Morganti put them all together in little notebooks and word has it they charged the City $100 apiece. Thinking, I suppose, that sub-contractor bids and revised scopes of work are none of the taxpayers business, Morganti included a little note in the notebooks saying that this information was to be kept at City Hall and not made available to, you know, the general public.

So maybe the Commission Chamber will be packed tomorrow night with citizen types expressing their outrage over what "Guaranteed" and "Maximum Price" actually mean. Maybe a few citizen types will express their outrage over Morganti's apparent disregard for the Public Records Act. I can hear Morganti's explanation now - "Oh No Commissioners, that's simply a comment we just include in all our reports." 

Or maybe not. Maybe citizen types are just worn out trying to keep up with all this. Maybe citizen types are fed up having to be the ones to express all this outrage, one at a time in two minutes and they are hoping that our Electeds do that. I'm pretty sure I heard a few campaign promises promising to do exactly that! But then again, it is the citizen types that are going to be footing the bill - so who knows.