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| It seems Joe Kish's final act on his way off to retirement is to try to hook up his friends at D'Huy again. |
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| John Castrovinci (second from right), the district's HR director, not only has his brother Frank running for school board, but his brother is one of the final applicants being considered to take over Sarah Bilotti's vacated spot on the board, just months before the election. |
Posted by: Noël Jones
If you recall, Colin McEvoy reported for the Express-Times last month that outgoing Asst. to the Superintendent, Joe Kish, and School Board President, Kerry Myers, tried to ram through approval to renew D'Huy's contract as the district's engineer on retainer, without members of the board being able to review proposals by other bidders, at least one of which included an offer of no retainer fees at all, and a free grant writer, who has successfully pulled down grants as high as $800,000 for another district. Fortunately, there was not a quorum in attendance, otherwise it would have been approved 4-3. So the vote was tabled until this week's school board meeting on Thursday at 6pm at the Easton Area Education Center at 1801 Bushkill Drive. Please come speak up at the beginning of the meeting (the AGENDA ITEMS ONLY portion) before our elected school board votes on this.
This is our last opportunity to come out and speak to the board about why they should insist on a full review of the final applicants, and should not renew D'Huy's contract. In case the fact that Joe Kish has been presenting invoices to the board for approval of payment for years without putting the proposals for the expenditures up for approval first is not enough to make you mad, here's an explanation by Tony Rhodin of the Express-Times as to D'Huy's shenanigans in both Easton and Bethlehem. And let's not forget that, according to one of our readers, the EASD's head of the maintenance department, Tim Case, has a son that works for D'Huy.
Another agenda item, as also reported by McEvoy last week, is the appointment of a replacement for Sarah Bilotti's vacated spot on the school board. Frank Castrovinci is not only the brother of HR Director, John Castrovinci, but the whole world knows that he is running
for the 4-year spot on the school board against Kerri Leonard-Ellison, so clearly he has no genuine interest in serving out the rest of Bilotti's term, if elected. Not only would an appointment be giving Castrovinci a political advantage, in making him appear to be an incumbent, rather than a challenger, but if he won, the district would have to appoint someone again, for Bilotti's spot. The most disturbing part though, is that Frank Castrovinci is allowed to run at all. The purpose of the elected school board is to make sure that the administration (that we pay with our tax dollars) is executing its duties in the best interest of the community, and not of themselves. There should never be a school board member that is related to an administrator, otherwise, nepotism erodes the integrity of the checks and balances that were designed in our local democracy to keep everything running efficiently in the interest of The People.
Another agenda item, as also reported by McEvoy last week, is the appointment of a replacement for Sarah Bilotti's vacated spot on the school board. Frank Castrovinci is not only the brother of HR Director, John Castrovinci, but the whole world knows that he is running
for the 4-year spot on the school board against Kerri Leonard-Ellison, so clearly he has no genuine interest in serving out the rest of Bilotti's term, if elected. Not only would an appointment be giving Castrovinci a political advantage, in making him appear to be an incumbent, rather than a challenger, but if he won, the district would have to appoint someone again, for Bilotti's spot. The most disturbing part though, is that Frank Castrovinci is allowed to run at all. The purpose of the elected school board is to make sure that the administration (that we pay with our tax dollars) is executing its duties in the best interest of the community, and not of themselves. There should never be a school board member that is related to an administrator, otherwise, nepotism erodes the integrity of the checks and balances that were designed in our local democracy to keep everything running efficiently in the interest of The People.
This is our tax money people. If we allow ourselves to be lazy and not fight waste, nepotism and croneyism like this, then we might as well say that we're fine having our taxes raised every year so that cronies can grease each other's pockets with our money and make very comfortable lives for themselves with our money while we struggle in this recession. PLEASE MAKE THIS A PRIORITY THIS WEEK. Mark your calendars for Thursday at 6pm--bring the kids if you need to. Our elected school board needs for the public to make it clear that we will not stand for this kind of corruption at our expense.
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31 comments:
I followed the link to Tony Rhodin's Express-Times opinion piece about D'Huy. It raised some interesting issues. Thanks Noel for keeping the accountability of the school board a front and center issue. While I don't necessarily agree that every act of the school board is suspect, I do think that as citizens and taxpayers we ought to demand accountability, integrity, vision, and trustworthy leadership.
I wholeheartedly agree with the D'Huy comments. Heck the district can't do anything without them, I think the even call them if they have to change a toilet seat. Plus they tried to blame the city for their mistakes at March school. The district has a competent maint supv in Tin Case. He is a salaried employee that can handle 90% of the tasks.
Now to Castrovinci. You see Ihave lived here all my life and we are a small community where everyone is related or friends. That's good and bad. In this case Frank shouldn't get the appointment because of his brother but he shouldn't be denied for that reason either. Frank is a well-respected executive at a large corporation and this Board lacks anyone with financial experience. I say appoint him for the rest of the term. His brother already has the job abd doing a fine job at that. And no IO am not related to them but I know both of them very well.
Folks, the School Board appointment is only until after the election this November. Whoever runs ad wins will fulfill the 2-year term after that.
I hope everyone makes it out Thursday to speak up before the vote on this contract.
Thursday, 6pm, 1801 Bushkill Drive.
The EASD website says the meeting is at 6:30p. Don't want to miss it. Are you sure it begins at 6?
I will make it to the meeting and speak up if I can get off of 78 by then. The school board should not approve the D'huy contract for several reasons.
1. They pay crazy amounts in fee's to these people every month. Take a look at the B&G invoices. The Barry Isett/Spillman team charge far less according to other school districts such as Allentown and Bangor. One large district and one small district.
2. The only other school district who pays them this much is Bethlehem. Guess why? Yes, D'huy hired the superintendents son-in-law and the former B&G director.
3. They do not actually perform all of the services in-house. To say they do is bull shit. They offer project management, structural engineering and they have one lisenced architect on staff. The civil engineering is subed to Terraform (which is co-owned by the owners of D'huy, Arif & Ron). The Mechanical Engineering is subed to Lehigh Valley Engineering. Testing is subed to SSM (according to reports) and architecture is subed to Architecture Furst (previously owned by Arif and Ron) They sold their interest in the firm when the residents of Bethlehem had a fit. Architecture Furst also did the high school addition, the natarium design, the admin building, march and paxinosa elementary project - All while owned by Arif and Ron. So yes they were double dipping and no there were no checks and balances. If the school board hires them you can honestly say they someone is being paid under the table. I am calling on the school board to do the right thing on this one.
Business Name History
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Name Type
TERRAFORM, LLC Current Name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Limited Liability Company - Domestic - Information
Entity Number: 3746249
Status: Active
Entity Creation Date: 7/30/2007
State of Business.: PA
Registered Office Address: One East Broad Street
Suite 330
Bethlehem PA 18018
Northampton
Mailing Address: No Address
SAME ADDRESS AS D'HUY. If you pay the fee you will find that Arif and Ron are owners of the company with Terry Degroot.
LETS NOT FORGET ABOUT THEIR CONSTRUCTION COMPANY JENGA CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT. I DOUBT THEY HAVE BID ON ANY SCHOOL DISTRICT WORK BUT YOU NEVER KNOW. IT SHOWS A PATTERN.
Business Name History
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name Name Type
JENGA Construction Management, Inc. Current Name
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business Corporation - Domestic - Information
Entity Number: 3808322
Status: Active
Entity Creation Date: 5/6/2008
State of Business.: PA
Registered Office Address: One E Broad Street, Suite 330
Bethlehem PA 18018
Northampton
Mailing Address: No Address
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Officers
Name: MOHAMMED A FAZIL
Title: President
Address: STE 340 ONE E BROAD ST
BETHLEHEM PA 18018-68
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: HENRY I GUARRIELLO
Title: Secretary
Address: [Address Not Available]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: RONALD C CARR
Title: Treasurer
Address: [Address Not Available]
Can you believe that D'huy actually conducted interviews with the Wilson Area School Board and architects and they preped the board with questions to ask the architects and the whole time TERRAFORM (OWNED BY ARIF AND RON) was on one of the architecture teams and I was told that they were at the interview. Guess who answered their questions correctly and go the job? Yep..... Guess who was also president of the Wilson Area School Board who completely missed this and fell right into their lap. Yep....one of your next school board members who is recommending D'huy.
D'huy completely manipulated the wilson school board on that one. Superintendent Wagner told me that Randy Galianto, another architect who did not compete for the project requested that the school district not consider hiring D'huy's architect for the wilson middle school project why D'huy served as Project Manager so they did not but then they went out for bids and d'huy still managed to sneak in the back door with their civil engineering company. The civil contract must have been worth 400,000.00. Fehnel let this get by him. You can check the record on this one. He completely screwed the Wilson tax payers.
D'huy engineering Staff:
Bob Gilly - Former Assistant Superintendent of Northampton School District and Former Superintendent of Brandywine School district. Both Clients of D'huy.
Henry Guarellio - Former Bethlehem School District's superintendent's son-in-law. Yes he was hired at the time when his father-in-law was dishing major contracts to D'huy.
Ken Case - son of Tim Case Building and grounds director of the Easton Area School District.
Dominic Villani - for B&G director of Bethlehem School District who went to work for D'huy then got the B&G director job at Nazareth who then went back to work for D'huy once he and Rosie Amato (Bethlehem area school board member and nazareth area school district athletic director) got them hired for the middle school contract.
And lets not forget that Delusio (Henry's father in law and former super of Bethlehem also control the NCC board of trustee who gave D'huy millions in contracts over the past few years including the new Monroe campus. Just look at the make up of that board.
I am happy to report that the citizens that spoke up tonight convinced a majority of the board to vote to TABLE the vote on D'Huy until the next meeting on August 18th.
Even though the board voted to appoint HR Director John Castrovinci's brother, Frank, to fill Sarah Bilotti's vacated seat, he at least sat down at the board meeting and used his first vote to table the vote on D'Huy after listening to the public's objections.
And Anon, you are right--Bob Fehnel did show up and speak up in support of D'Huy, with a strange argument--that they had only messed up on jobs because they were given bad specifications. as i understand it, D'Huy, as the district's engineer on retainer, is responsible for the specifications...
Anyway, the citizens one this bar fight, but there we'll go through it all again on August 18th, so anyone who couldn't make it tonight, please mark your calendars and come next time--And many thanks to those that did come and speak up tonight!
Noel:
You didn't win shit this evening, and your new hairdo ain't making it!
Bob Fehnel loves D'huy and he buys all of their bull shit. Ask yourself two questions.......Do you trust your tax dollars with a firm who has board member begging others to hire them. Do you trust your tax dollars in the hands of a firm who employs the B&G directors son?
Bad specifications. It's D'huys job to review the specifications. It's called constructability reviews. Bob Fehnel is going to be the worst thing to happen to the school district. The majority of the issues with Wilsons new Middle School were caused by bad site drawings....Guess what Bob? Who owns the civil engineering firm that did the drawings and specifications for the Wilson Middle School Project? Guess!
Can anyone tell me how D'huy knows what Barry Isett / Spillman's fee were in their proposal. I just called a friend at Barry Isett and he tells me that they did not recieve the fees of the other firms. Plus I'm told that Barry Isett / Spillman waived the need for the retainer which makes the hourly rates invalid anyway. So someone please answer that! Did d'huy get a copy of their rates prior to them submitting a proposal? Is there any board member or candidate who can answer that?
Annon 8:08;
The real question is how can anyone trust that the process wasn't tainted due to the administration having strong ties to D'huy. I'm guessing that D'huy saw everyones proposal prior to putting theirs together. AND BOB FEHNEL ENDORSES THIS. ITS GOING TO BE A LONG ROAD FOR YOU BOB. THIS ISN'T WILSON. YOU ARE NOW UNDER A MICROSCOPE.
Let's not forget how Bob Fehnel allowed Terraform Engineering (who is owed by Arif) compete for the wilson area middle school job while Arif served as project manager to the board. Let's not forget that Arif was the man gave questions to the Wilson school board to ask the teams completing. The teams were evaluated by the board and D'huy based on who answered the question correctly. And guess who told them what the correct answers were - yes D'huy. How is that Ethical? Why would Fehnel allow this? Is he that nieve? Mr. Fehnel you owe us an explanation.
Dear Mr. Fehnel:
If D'huy engineering were so great they would have remembered to file for a sidwalk permit with the City of Easton for March School. This permit gives the City Engineer the ability to review the side walks and ramps for compliance with codes. The bad specifications for those h/c ramps could have been avoided with a $20 permit to the city engineer. They goofed and blamed it on the city. It was their own damn fault. The city engineer would have caught prior to the wrong being installed. OH but bad specifications. NO...the wrong ramps were designed by who?????thats right! Terraform Engineering! Who owns Terraform Engineering? Yep...you bet. Arif Fazil and Ron Car. So D'huy gave themselves bad specifications while manipulating the system.
Anon--where are you getting these records? Could you post a link please? Thanks in advance...
Also, please see my latest post on the Castrovinci appointment and the tabling of the D'Huy vote!
Gina (who I suspect is actually male)--new hairdo? I wish! I guess the humidity becomes me.
Would you care to actually MAKE A POINT AND BACK IT UP? Off-topic personal insults to myself or other readers will be deleted if you cannot find something discussion-worthy to say.
You are more than welcome to disagree--even passionately-- with other commenters or myself, but you must try to contribute to the conversation--which is hard to do if you don't have any strong points to make. That's when people give up on the debate and start hurling insults, which only serves to discredit any actual views they may have.
Check Wilson school district records on who the civil engineer was for their middle school project. I was a contractor working on site. They had alot of issues with the site design mostly retaining walls. The joke on site was that D'huy was taking the money to pay for mistakes out of a slush fund they put in the bid.
This is hilarious. D'huy is at it again. If this school district Hires D'huy they will never wake up.
Anon 8:08;
For what it is worth, I felt it important to share my personal experience in an attempt to perhaps shed some light on "how D'huy knows what Barry Isett / Spillman's fee were in their proposal."
As a private citizen, I recently had the opportunity to talk with representatives of Barry Isett in a community related social setting. Their EASD Engineering Proposal was a topic of conversation. At that time, the RFP review process had already been completed and recommendations had been made to the the School Board. I felt, and still feel, that all of the RFP proposals should be a matter of public record. I asked if the Isett representatives would provide me with a copy of their proposal, and a few days later they did. Following last night's School Board Meeting, I had a candid, detailed, lengthy conversation with the owner of D'Huy Engineering. He shared with me the written details of the new proposed engineering contract with D'Huy that is being considered by the EASD Board. I reciprocated by offering to share with him the Barry Isett proposal in my possession. He was eager to see the Isett proposal and was genuinely surprised by the information that it contained, particularly the proposed pricing of the services to be provided. I believe that our review last evening was the first view D'Huy's owner had of those fees. It could be that he is just a great actor and he took advantage of the opportunity to try to build his case, but I don't think so. I don't believe that D'Huy was privy to those fees and percentages in advance of their RFP proposal submission in January. I don't believe they were aware of any of the other engineering firms proposals until last night. That is only my opinion, and one based solely on last night's experience.
CAT--thanks for clarifying.
he mentioned during the meeting that he knew the fee's not after so her already knew. Arif is a good actor - don't trust him. I will be shining lots of light on Arif via this forum over the next few weeks. Things that will make it impossible for the school district to hire them. Bob Fehnel will continue to allow this stuff to happen.
And I'm told that they recieved the numbers from kish. How else can you explain the drastic drop in hourly rates from one month to the next. In november they are charging the school district $150 dollars an hour and in December they give them a proposal for $100 per hour. Come on.......how do you explain this? Smokin mirrors.
Anon 7:31--that's great. please take a moniker, so that it's easier to follow the thread--and please back up the things you're saying whenever you can with links to articles, county records, public school records, etc. to validate what you're asserting for other readers--thanks for posting.
Anon 7:28 -
I watched the online video of Thursday night's Board meeting. In his comments, the owner of D'Huy never mentioned that he knew the fees of any of the other bidders. He says a lot of stuff about how great his firm is and about all of the myriad of projects they've done for the District without any issues. He talks about the rigorous RFP process that the District ran his firm through and how D'Huy offered various options to the District, with a retainer and without. Through it all, there was no mention of any knowledge of what other bidders had proposed.
Anon 7:31 -
The difference in hourly rates might simply indicate that different D'Huy employees worked on those jobs. Their contract provides different professionals at different hourly rates based on their experience and expertise.
I just watched the video and Bob Fehnel has no idea what he is talking about. D'huy is to review all specifications provided for compliance. Isn't that what 90% of the RFP was about? Fehnel talks a big game.
Anon 11:20 -
I totally agree with you in regard to Mr. Fehnel's comments in that meeting.
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