Contractor on Bronx Water Filtration Plant Admits to Fraud

One of the primary contractors that worked on the enormous Croton Water Filtration Plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park admitted last week to committing fraud in reporting its sub-contracting of minority and women-owned businesses.

Schiavone Construction, which performed much of the tunneling and trucking during the early phases of the filtration plant project, agreed to pay the federal government $20 million in penalties. The company now doing the bulk of the construction work on the filtration plant, Skanska, is also under investigation for similar misdeeds.

Members of Community Board 7 who worked with Skanska in putting together a class to help minority and women-owned businesses get competitive for big city contracts wondered how this could have happened on such a large, heavily-scrutinized project. They're also wondering: what else might be going on?

There is a meeting of the Croton Facilities Monitoring Committee next Wednesday and this is sure to be a hot topic for discussion. 

News Roundup for Aug. 13

The feds are still fining the city $30K a day for not inking a deal yet with construction firm Skanska to build the Croton filtration plant, according to the Times.

The Times uses the opportunity to report on some rather old news (the Norwood News ran this story on the same subject in May) concerning the massive cost overruns on the project.

Newsday has the AP story on the filter fines.

By the way, we ran into Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz the other day in Riverdale and he said he wasp planning to sit down with the city’s Department of Investigation soon in hopes of getting them to, yes, investigate the project and the cost issue.

Likely mayoral rivals Adolfo Carrion, Jr. and William Thompson marched together at the Dominican Day Parade over the weekend, the Observer reports. The progression of their relationship in the coming months will be closely watched. Thompson has always spoken highly of Carrion, beginning with the latter’s days as councilman. We’ll see how long it lasts as they each eye Gracie Mansion. Or maybe they will eventually form a powerful Black-Latino ticket -- Thompson for mayor, Carrion for comptroller.

Lots of Giuliani dissection this week. A lengthy profile in the New Yorker and over at the Village Voice Wayne Barrett takes a look at “Rudy Giuliani’s 5 Big Lies About 9/11."

WNYC reports that the city will be spraying the borough’s southeastern nabes with pesticide on Wed. night to deter West Nile Virus.

News Roundup for July 31

Apparently the United Nations is just as problematic a construction project as the Croton Water Filtration Plant. After some false starts, the Swedish construction firm Skanska AB, one of the contractors involved in the filtration plant, was selected by the UN to manage the renovation of its headquarters in Manhattan. Reuters has the details of the $7 million initial contract that could yield $1 billion for Skanska over time.

Gotham Gazette has a feature by a high school student from New Youth Connections , about efforts to expand mental health services and counseling in the public schools.

The New York Post looks at Joel Klein's five years as schools chancellor and his accomplishments so far. None of his predecessors has lasted that long since the post was created in 1970.

A Daily News story reports on another uninhabitable city-subsidized apartment. Tenant Steven Berry was forced to move his asthmatic kids out of the Valentine Ave. apartment because the power was cut off and he can't plug in the kids' nebulizers. Councilman Joel Rivera is calling for the Department of Homeless Services to withhold rent in situations like this.

And Bob Kapstatter reports in his Bronx Boro News (supplement to the Daily News) column (not on-line yet) that Bronx District Attorney is running unopposed again, at this point, and that Adolfo Carrion has been fined $6,875 by the Campaign Finance Board for campaign finance violations.