Last night the Town Council met to hear the engineer’s response to Tom’s accusation that the foundation of the new water tower was built with half the reinforcement it should have had, as shown by photos of the poured concrete with two ends of rebar sticking out instead of four, which are stipulated by the Montana standards for water towers. All council members were present. Onlookers included only two citizens with a roll-off site proposal, the deputy sheriff present to make his report, myself, and Kory Kovatch, who was on the previous council for many years and has a familial love of the town. The energetic Tom was missing. So were the two male town employees, one of whom is the water master.
The response was direct: Tom’s photos had showed the ends of TIEBOLTS, threaded for bolting down the feet of the tower. The REBAR reinforcement in the legs is a complex cage of metal, some of it encircling rather than vertical, not the long bars from top to bottom described by Tom. The reinforcement can’t be seen once the cement is poured. Also, the requirements of the set of standards in our contract are for two tie-bolts on each of the four corner platforms plus four in the one under the central steel foundation pillar. In short, Tom’s alarm was totally misinformed. In philosophical terms, it was a category error: he didn’t know a tiebolt from a rebar stub. And neither did we.
The question that was not asked nor answered at the meeting was: “has the foundation construction up to this point been inspected on-site and did a qualified inspector look at the steel reinforcements and sign off on it before the concrete was poured? What about strength tests on the cement?” Also, what oversight by what agencies is involved in plans examination and execution for water towers?
What was the source of this idea on Tom’s part? Now I’m quoting from the photocopied “bullet list” Engineer’s Report to the Town Council that was handed out last night.
August 4. The iron work design, calculations and drawing for the tank foundation was submitted. The engineering company found the “seismic site class and acceleration coefficients” were incorrect.
August 24. New corrected plans were submitted and accepted.
December 2. Design drawings submitted by the subcontractor for the tank superstructure.
December 16. The engineers rejected the tank design drawings based on eleven issues, including “non-compliance with AWWA D-100 Section 4.4.1.1 -- requiring a minimum of 4 anchor bolts.” Since then the subcontractor and the engineer have resolved the anchor bolt issue. (No word on the other ten issues.) Plan reviews often lead to corrections -- that’s why they are reviewed.
The town was sent copies of this transmittal about anchor bolts. At some point another engineering firm acquired a copy that had a scribbled note on the front -- “PROBLEM” and “Possible C/O by Contractor” which they sent back to the water tank engineering firm. on Jan 28. The mayor remarked that she had had a copy which somehow disappeared from her desk.
The rest of the report is about the coming schedule of work. No word about progress on the water meters before that was stopped by weather. It’s twenty below zero today, but the engineer (a young and vigorous man) claimed that he loved to drive up this way and would be staying at the Stone School Inn Bed and Breakfast, which is more like a resort hotel than usual small town traveler motels.
The same people on the council who were swearing vengeance and claiming that they would have blood (can you tell I’m exaggerating) were now “so relieved” and telling the engineer how wonderful he was. In truth, I didn’t mention the name of the engineering firm and the subcontractor (who ARE named in the report to the town) because I couldn’t remember their names. (I’m old.) But it was a good thing because their livelihood depends upon their reputation.
Much more seriously, if this accusation had proven to be true there would be major cost issues, and most seriously of all -- and the reason all the engineers I worked with at the City of Portland (who were plans examiners and site inspectors) had stomach problems -- is that the failure or even potential failure of something like a water tank would mean their licenses would be revoked and their livelihood removed. Often the Portland engineers talked among themselves about plans examiners and engineers who missed things like the load limits in a bridge over a dance floor where onlookers could stand to watch, because it never occurred to them that so many people would ever crowd onto it, collapsing it, killing both watchers and dancers. Plans examiners do exacting, boring, detail-ridden, contingency-dependent work day after day and yet mistakes can be catastrophic.
Why would someone play games with incendiary information like this watertower accusation or even keep up a constant stream of criticism, demands for information, accusations that the town council is mismanaging, and so on. Is it a borderline personality problem that causes a person to lose his boundaries? Is it the times, a kind of Tea Party mind-set? Or is it a scam? Is it significant that he and the mayor are both from the Pacific Northwest and were very cozy until recently?
Some would say I was irresponsible to blog about this small town kafuffle, that it should be suppressed as the town council suggested last week. I think it would be irresponsible not to tell the whole story. I think it is irresponsible that citizens do not show up at meetings. I think it was irresponsible that the engineering company has not kept in closer touch with clients. But none of this was illegal.
But I’m on the side of transparency and more happy to have too much information than not enough. This does not shut down my private speculations on what happened, what WILL happen, and why. In fact, it’s the why that interests me most. I’ve said from the beginning of my self-assigned monitoring (which originally began because the newspaper doesn’t attend) that I would eventually get a book out of my notes. Now it’s beginning to look like a good BBC-type mystery. I’ll need a body, of course, maybe in that concrete support pillar which is knocked apart to check the suspected rebar problem. I’ll take suggestions on who the victim ought to be.
The engineer said his special concentration was small town projects and showed that he understood his clients by distributing candy at the end. However, when I said I had diabetes, he heard me.
1 comment:
Our community has a "Tom," who videotapes people and fixates on wrongdoing, both real and imaginary. He served a term as county commissioner, but his bizarre behavior made sure he wasn't re-elected. He eventually lost his job as a teacher for other bizarre behavior.
He sits at home now, listening to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and harrassing people on the Internet. He's the reason I NEVER blog about local affairs.
For a while I shared work space with him when I taught GED classes and he still had a job. He had strange mood swings, hoarding behavior, and warned me often that everybody was out to get us. He has relatives in common with my husband, and they assure me that both his father and mother "weren't right in the head."
Since your "Tom" is what people here call "an import," you don't have any hereditary indicators that might explain his behavior.
I hope you do write a mystery!
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