BY DONNA WESTFALL

If you haven’t been following this series then let me bring you up to date.  Many people of the public complained, including myself both as a member of the public as well as a former elected official, that the expansion component on the waste water treatment plant (WWTP) was ridiculously low at 11.8% since the Membrane Bio-Reactor alone accounted for $30 million according to Wahlund’s Bid… the one and only bid.  Actually, here’s the exact verbiage I used on the sewer rate increase repeal initiative, “Whereas we believe the 11% expansion figure that Willdan Engineering came up with as THE expansion figure is probably fictitious…..”

In trying to pinpoint exactly how the 11% figure came into being, I made a request during public comment at the March 4th council meeting (14 days ago)  to review all those pertinent reports. The response I received back from our city has me shaking my head and wondering if they are being deliberately obtuse because there’s no mention who prepared this document, where it came from, where the figures came from, no back up documentation, etc.  This 1 page flyer does not even begin to constitute a REPORT!  See if you agree.

Plus, Willdan is not an engineering firm per the Petition for Write of Mandate served on me in 2010 when I was sued to keep the initiative off the November 2010 ballot.  Acording to them, Willdan is a financial firm not an engineering firm.  Why then did former Mayor Kelly Schellong tell me to look at the Willdan report concerning the expansion percentage?  Did she not know that the City staff developed the expansion figure with Brown & Caldwell, Kennedy/Jenks and Stover Engineering?  Where are those reports or records?  Were they destroyed?

Here then is page 2 of City Attorney Bob Black’s response: