reported that Reilly’s office had sent a demand letter 6 weeks ago to big Dig Contractors demanding $108 million in big dig refunds because of shoddy work. Do you suppose that the Herald story is missing a few details .How about $108 million details.
Looks to me like its another “no good deed goes unpunished.” story for Tom.
Please share widely!
does not a settlement make. Here’s Bechtel’s position, as quoted in the Globe:
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I’m all for Reilly recovering buckets of $$$ from Bechtel, and when he does so, I’ll be happy to cheer for him. Meanwhile, however, Reilly’s decision to allow Bechtel to control info about the leaks is fair game, and Reilly can’t very well take credit for money he hasn’t yet recovered.
no one is convinced (at least, I’m not) that Reilly is up to anything “evil” with respect to the confidentiality agreement. But it appears to have been a dumb move. Care to explain why it wasn’t?
that will impact many parties to the dispute. There are numerous subcontractors , engineers and architects that will all be pointing fingers and ,as such, that report will be critical to the case.The contractor’s lawyers probably required the state to sign a confidentiality agreement in the face of potential litigation from third parties. It may be similiar to the gag order of criminal cases . The big dig has a more public profile and therefore anything that is released to the public can be prejudicial to any of the parties. Also, anything the AG does in private is suspect, especially if he is running for Gov. He is in a difficult position acting as the lawyer for the state and running for Gov at the same time. But without knowing the facts in these highly complex contractor disputes and waiting for the eventual trial the temptation to categorize any business decision made by any party in this case as “dumb” is not justified.
What AG Tom Reilly is doing in trying to recover some of the extra costs for the Dig is commendable. It’s a tough job, and one he certainly took on for poliical reasons (and David’s right that this is far from over — Reilly’s office actually considered letting the case sit for a while b/c it’s so time-consuming.) But don’t forget, it was the Republicans who screwed this up, and I don’t hear them being skewered anywhere.
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Those costs shot through the roof under Republican watch, and as far as I can tell, they did little or nothing to actually manage the project.
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When a developer or contractor wants to make a major change to the cost of a project, it files a change order to request more money (I’ve never heard of a contractor asking for less.) The change order has to be approved by the state (I’m guessing it was the Turnpike board that approved most of them) b/c it’s our money the state is using. The state can deny a change order if it thinks the change order is unwarranted or grossly inflated.
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Although I don’t know how feasible this is, I would imagine the state could also refuse a change order based on the experience of so many contractors coming in with low bids to win the contract then jacking the prices once they’ve got the state hooked.
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But I don’t recall the Republican “leadership” doing anyhinig to manage our money. So let’s focus on who really screwed things up, and not beat each other up.
Either Reilly or Patrick should be able to hammer Healey with this one come the fall. If Patrick uses it now against Reilly — and I question whether this would be an effective attack — it could devalue this issue in the fall against the true screw-ups, the Republicans.