Duggan Using Fuzzy Math on Building Demolitions?

[MSUguy]

Duggan went before council to given presentation to address LeDuff's report[[and seemed a little miffed about it). The short answer to his explanation was while the city demolished 6,700, the city has been reimbursed for over 3,000. MSHDA acts has the fiduciary for the demo money, they review the invoices for completed work, they pay the land bank and the land banks pays its contractors. Duggan with went into detail about the amount of paperwork they have to submit for each demo and the time lag between when state reviews it,etc. Certainly seemed to make sense, it'll be interesting to see how LeDuff responds.

[Richard]

Duggan went before council to given presentation to address LeDuff's report[[and seemed a little miffed about it). The short answer to his explanation was while the city demolished 6,700, the city has been reimbursed for over 3,000. MSHDA acts has the fiduciary for the demo money, they review the invoices for completed work, they pay the land bank and the land banks pays its contractors. Duggan with went into detail about the amount of paperwork they have to submit for each demo and the time lag between when state reviews it,etc. Certainly seemed to make sense, it'll be interesting to see how LeDuff responds.

Which says the feds are keeping a eye on what is happening.

Having said that I am still waiting for my $30k from ACOE and FEMA from subcontracting after Katrina,ya might say that they are a little slow on the pay aspect,but owe them one dollar and they will spend thousands to collect it.

If you really think about it,the massive undertaking with thousands of details involved in taking a city so far behind up to speed,it would take a lot of patience on the residents part,one would guess.

Maybe if he had sent a email to the mayors office first?

[Honky Tonk]

Which says the feds are keeping a eye on what is happening.

Having said that I am still waiting for my $30k from ACOE and FEMA from subcontracting after Katrina,ya might say that they are a little slow on the pay aspect,but owe them one dollar and they will spend thousands to collect it.

If you really think about it,the massive undertaking with thousands of details involved in taking a city so far behind up to speed,it would take a lot of patience on the residents part,one would guess.

Maybe if he had sent a email to the mayors office first?

I'm glad Dug-in decided to respond to Charlie's theatrics and try to clear the air. It shows he's @ least trying to maintain an air of decorum about his administration. It still bothers me that it took the mayor to finally bring forth some sort of rational explanation. The three committee members LeDuff originally inreviewed certainly seemed scattered and clueless. $600k worth of salaried administration should have done way better than that.

[MSUguy]

[Richard]

I'm glad Dug-in decided to respond to Charlie's theatrics and try to clear the air. It shows he's @ least trying to maintain an air of decorum about his administration. It still bothers me that it took the mayor to finally bring forth some sort of rational explanation. The three committee members LeDuff originally inreviewed certainly seemed scattered and clueless. $600k worth of salaried administration should have done way better than that.

I agree,when I was trying to deal with a city and county administration a few years back,it was kinda strange to say the least,if you took a group of ten maybe at best there seemed to be at 2 that really cared and knew what was going on and how to deal with things.

The problem there was they were the underlings at the bottom, so as hard as they tried they were throttled,conversations with upper management were guarded at best in their wording and even though they were in a position to have the finial say, they would not.

To be honest it seemed like they were in fear of saying anything that might not be appealing to higher ups.So the whole city was being throttled,hence the drastic moves.

Maybe it still exists today and is going to take more time to straighten out,the mayor is there and he seems to be trying his best to keep everybody informed when before it was more like pay your taxes if you feel like it and trust me without question.

I think as a last resort and after using the chain of command for a pending issue that gives the residents grief,a email sent to him directly would be responded to.

There seems to be a decent city council that is starting to look out for or at least listening to and addressing the residents concerns.

There is a lot on the table to deal with and to me there seems to be a transition of instead of demanding answers it may be better to use a little bit of tact and ask the questions and allow a bit of time for the response.

Maybe we need to give some credit to the currant administration and allow them and help them deal with the past and move forward into a brighter future.

There is still going to be a lot of abused spouse syndrome so it is not to say stop the questions but maybe more so a lot of patience on both sides.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

Anyone with questions about how the city is managing the demolitions really should take the time to listen to the Mayor's presentation.

[ABetterDetroit]

Anyone with questions about how the city is managing the demolitions really should take the time to listen to the Mayor's presentation.

It answered a lot of my questions. My first thought was 16k was way to much based on my construction and demolition experience. It would be tough though getting a solid low bid with a "oh and by the way, you will not get paid for at least six months after completion." That little snag will cost you.

[Richard]

He did say it was open for discussion on the extra monies being spent on replacing the sidewalks,although as a contractor and using a bobcat or excavator if I destroyed a customers property it would be me that was footing the bill and I had to do what it would take to protect it from damage.

The weight of the large excavators would probably make it a given that it would damage the sidewalk.

If one looks at the city lawsuit claims of people tripping on damaged sidewalks or a potential ADA lawsuit then it would seem as though it is actually better to pay the $1000 or what ever to replace or repair the sidewalk.Cheap insurance.

The water spraying aspect he did say it was done before and after,where I am at we are required to have continuous water misting throughout the whole process.

Sounds kinda picky but if a gust of wind comes up it does blow contaminants quite a distance.

If you have a vintage house and are sanding the front porch that contains lead based paint in a breezy condition in the EPAs eyes you have just contaminated 1/2 block.

I have seen news clips of when they were demoing Cass and a couple others where they were using a continuous water misting,who knows maybe just a oversite on words anyways.

[Richard]

It answered a lot of my questions. My first thought was 16k was way to much based on my construction and demolition experience. It would be tough though getting a solid low bid with a "oh and by the way, you will not get paid for at least six months after completion." That little snag will cost you.

If you have a company and have to pay your help that would put a damper on it,so that would answer Charlies question about the houses that were demo but not hauled of yet.

The demo crews were moving faster then the hauling crews or to far ahead of schedule,the only way around that would be for the city to foot the bill and then wait for the funds to reimburse the city,probably not such a good idea.

But that makes it hard to nail down a system flow,starting and stopping,I guess it is what it is.

[Dbest]

This seems to be getting a little stickier for Duggan as Bing has come out and disputed some of the current mayor's claims.

Bing questions rising blight costs under Duggan

Matt Helms and Joe Guillen, Detroit Free Press 10:49 p.m. EDT October 29, 2015
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[[Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)


Former Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on Thursday questioned the reasons behind huge increases in the cost of blight removal under his successor, Mike Duggan, and defended his administration's record of demolishing nearly 9,000 houses.
Bing requested to meet with Free Press reporters and editors and brought along his former planning and development director, Robert Anderson, to take issue with Duggan’s assertions that the Bing administration didn’t tear down houses to the same environmental standards as Duggan's team. Bing also said Duggan has understated the number of demolitions under Bing.
Bing insisted he wasn't trying to "throw stones" at the new administration, but he felt compelled to defend his record.
“We want them to succeed — I think all of us do,” Bing said of Duggan’s blight team.
Detroit’s aggressive demolition program — responsible for tearing down about 7,000 structures since May 2014, largely with federal funds — has faced recent criticism, with WJBK-TV [[Channel 2) raising questions about the average costs per demolition and the bidding process.
It's clear that, under Duggan, Detroit has significantly sped up demolitions in the last 18 months. It's a record pace for a city that — even under Bing — ran the largest demolition program of its kind in the U.S.

DETROIT FREE PRESS
Detroit to get $21 million more for blight demolition




Duggan, through a spokesman, declined to address Bing's comments, referring questions to Brian Farkas, special projects manager for the Detroit Building Authority.
Bing told the Free Press that his biggest concern about the rising costs of Detroit's demolitions is that fewer of the tens of thousands of blighted homes in Detroit will be torn down if prices don't come back down to levels he was able to achieve as mayor. Under Bing, demolitions generally cost between $8,500 and $10,500, while the prices have skyrocketed in some cases to $16,000-$20,000 under the Duggan administration's brisk pace of blight removal.
Despite criticism of the cost hikes, the city this week won another $21 million in federal funds to keep the blight removal program going through April 2016. The city had risked running out of money for demolitions by year's end.
In his toughest remarks, Bing labeled as “B.S.” Duggan’s claims that the Bing administration was required to do far less removal of asbestos from homes before demolishing them, and that his administration’s demolitions were done scattershot. He said the city clustered demolitions in six areas of the city where officials believed removing blight would have the most impact on stabilizing neighborhoods, and that the city had to remove asbestos and meet other U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards just as Duggan's administration does.

DETROIT FREE PRESS
Duggan explains increase in blight demolition costs




Farkas of the building authority said the state's Department of Environmental Quality has toughened standards for asbestos removal in the last year and a half, marking a big difference from the standards the Bing administration faced. Farkas said that, in previous years, the city received far more emergency demolition permits in which asbestos removal wasn't required. But the state now requires that emergency demolitions be granted only in cases where there's an immediate danger to a neighborhood, such as the risk of an imminent collapse.
“The standard has gone up significantly, and a lot of it is derived from the MDEQ standards across the state,” he said.
That's one of the major costs the Duggan administration has blamed for rising demolition prices. Duggan has said the costs also are rising because of competitive pricing for trucking large loads of clean fill dirt and new requirements to fix broken sidewalks and other damages demolition crews leave behind.
Farkas said the administration understands the concerns about the higher demolition costs.
“We’re looking at everything across the city at how to spend money more efficiently, including demolitions,” he said.
Representatives for Duggan defended the mayor’s count of demolitions in the Bing era, saying it was based on the number of permits issued for tear-downs during Bing's tenure: 5,702. If that number is spread out over the four years Bing was in office, it puts the number of demolitions closer to 25 a week.
But Bing said there were no demolitions done in 2009, and he said the city on its own demolished 7,055 homes in 2010-2013. Factoring in private demolitions and those done in conjunction with the Michigan Land Bank, Bing said nearly 9,000 homes were torn down in 2010-2013 — at a rate of nearly 60 a week. That’s more than double the 25 a week Duggan has repeatedly said Bing’s administration managed.
The discrepancy between Bing's count of demolitions completed by the city and the number of demolition permits during his tenure could not be resolved immediately Thursday.
In other comments, Bing said he was concerned that the Duggan administration's focus on speed through contracting with a small number of large-scale contractors was leaving out the smaller, minority-owned firms that Bing's administration cultivated to encourage economic development and job creation within the city.
"If you want to go fast, and that's the strategy, I can't say that the Duggan administration is wrong," Bing said.
He said there may be a need for additional oversight eyes on demolition spending.
"When you look at the people of the city of Detroit and what they're going through, you want to maximize efficiency," he said. "Somebody needs to explain why the costs have gone up. ... There may be justification; I don't know. But tell me, if we were doing it for anywhere from $8,500 to $10,000, why they can't do it."

[Hypestyles]

what happened to the Pulte group?

[Dbest]

what happened to the Pulte group?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2014/04/17/why-did-detroit-mayor-sideline-anti-blight-entrepreneur-bill-pulte/

[Richard]

what happened to the Pulte group?

The content of this thread is probably why,because at the end of the day no matter who is running the program the mayor is responsible to the residents,with multiple partners there is to much room for he said she said.

The city is responsible for applying for and dispersing the funds,the demo funds are fed funds but the city taxpayers are bearing the the administration costs,it is kinda redundant to bear those costs then disperse the funds elsewhere to another administration where the costs are incurred again.

The city has a master plan and is in the best coordinating position to center the demolitions around that plan.

So now if one has a beef it is clear where to go to vent it.

I am not sure why Mr. Bing feels the need to now become a back seat driver in the running of the city,personally I feel if he can explain the urgent need to spend the funds to demolish the Ford theater verses neighborhood homes.

Whether or not it needed to be demolished,it did not directly impact the daily lives of the average person living in the neighborhoods,which should have been the priority given the scope of things,losing one resident who gave up would not have made it worth it.

I think the Pulti group was only needed because at the time there was little leadership,and because of the lack of it was necessary to figure out ways to sub contract that leadership out.

The difference I see in the administration and the way they have been dealing with the demolitions is under Mr Bing the group of funds targeted one specific neighborhood and the plan was one neighborhood at a time.

With Mr Duggan,and you can see it here with the postings,he is targeting all neighborhoods maybe just couple of homes per neighborhood,but it is directly impacting a greater amount of residents across the board and giving every neighborhood a chance instead of a select few.

[Dbest]

/http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/11/01/37m-extra-paid-detroits-blight-fight/74890142/

[Mzsuzuki]

/http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/11/01/37m-extra-paid-detroits-blight-fight/74890142/

I called the City of Detroit at least once per month concerning 3 adjacent abandoned
and dilapidated homes on my block. The first barrier I encountered was that even though the properties were in spitting distance of one another....one property was on the city's list while the other two properties - land bank list. Apparently no one thought to merge the lists and color code it. Therefore I had to call two numbers about three properties. The second problem was they didn't seem to have a process for prioritizing homes [[for example: by bus stops, along children's pathway to school, etc.)

One nice spring day, they finally decided to demolish one of the homes. The next month on an equally fine spring day, they decided to demolish another home.

Question- why couldn't the contractor have demolished both homes on the same day? Instead of charging $16,000 for each home, they could have charged $16,000 for both homes......did the city negotiate any "bundle pricing" or was each home/building a la carte?

[Richard]

Question- why couldn't the contractor have demolished both homes on the same day? Instead of charging $16,000 for each home, they could have charged $16,000 for both homes......did the city negotiate any "bundle pricing" or was each home/building a la carte?

Because there is a fixed cost per house to demolish,if the total is $16,000 and their fixed cost is $12,000,that would be total of $24,000 for two homes,so to ask that they demolish two homes for $16,000 is like asking them to cut you a check when they are done for the privilege of allowing them to demolish the homes.

Without us knowing the actual fixed cost per house,we cannot just say what is unfair.Unless we just pull some numbers out of the air and say it sounds good anyways.

Maybe we could borrow Flo's little price gun for the bundle aspect.One of the links posted above explains the hit and miss aspect better and how they are bundled etc.

[Richard]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2014/04/17/why-did-detroit-mayor-sideline-anti-blight-entrepreneur-bill-pulte/

I guess Mr. Buss is entitled to his opinion,but I am not seeing the reason for blasting the city with the stupid little comments.

[Mzsuzuki]

Because there is a fixed cost per house to demolish,if the total is $16,000 and their fixed cost is $12,000,that would be total of $24,000 for two homes,so to ask that they demolish two homes for $16,000 is like asking them to cut you a check when they are done for the privilege of allowing them to demolish the homes.

Without us knowing the actual fixed cost per house,we cannot just say what is unfair.Unless we just pull some numbers out of the air and say it sounds good anyways.

Maybe we could borrow Flo's little price gun for the bundle aspect.One of the links posted above explains the hit and miss aspect better and how they are bundled etc.

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...king/75187324/

Land Bank Chief fired.

[Mzsuzuki]

Because there is a fixed cost per house to demolish,if the total is $16,000 and their fixed cost is $12,000,that would be total of $24,000 for two homes,so to ask that they demolish two homes for $16,000 is like asking them to cut you a check when they are done for the privilege of allowing them to demolish the homes.

Without us knowing the actual fixed cost per house,we cannot just say what is unfair.Unless we just pull some numbers out of the air and say it sounds good anyways.

Maybe we could borrow Flo's little price gun for the bundle aspect.One of the links posted above explains the hit and miss aspect better and how they are bundled etc.

Ahhhhh but you laugh now at Flo's little price gun.....I will scroll up to find the article you are referencing. Thanks for the clarification Richard....so. If I have a crew demolishing a house....I can charge another $12,000 even though the houses are adjacent to one another and I am using the same crew, trucks, gas, etc.? I love it!

[Richard]

If I have a crew demolishing a house....I can charge another $12,000 even though the houses are adjacent to one another and I am using the same crew, trucks, gas, etc.? I love it!

Lol so now that we have that established,I am going to pay you to paint my house,my neighbor next door needs his painted also so as long as you are painting my house you can paint his house for free including materials..... because he is only next door .. Right?

And do not even try the route of double charging me to make up for the difference of his costs,I am hip to that.

With bundling which is what they are doing,say 400 houses per package it is actually better for the city,if they stick to the actual bid,no exceptions,the contractor would look at maybe losing money on one demo because of hidden costs but would make it up on another that maybe easier or less costly.

Nobody is going to do a cost analysis on every house in a package bid,it would take weeks,just take the average cost per house and x it by how many are in the package.

They may have skipped houses by you because one is not finished going through the process and cleared for demolition yet.

If they are doing 100s of homes at once it is understandable that it puts a strain on the supply of fill dirt etc. because it becomes a demand that was not in place before.

The link you posted of the guy being fired kinda shows friend or not if you do not do your job in the best interest of the city,you get fired.

To me anyways,that is a positive thing.

[Dbest]

I thought Duggan looked noticeably agitated when addressing this matter. Maybe we are starting to see why. Also, whats up with the love affair with the Lewand's? in this case 475k in annual salary? Nepotism at its finest.

[Cliffy]

Ahhhhh but you laugh now at Flo's little price gun.....I will scroll up to find the article you are referencing. Thanks for the clarification Richard....so. If I have a crew demolishing a house....I can charge another $12,000 even though the houses are adjacent to one another and I am using the same crew, trucks, gas, etc.? I love it!

One of the biggest expenses in construction is mobilizing. If for example you have a row of 5 houses that need to be demolished, it will always be cheaper to do than go to 5 different locations and set everything up. Either way, private companies always pillage the system but since "private" has the reputation in this country to be "efficient", people think they are getting a good deal. Duggan knows the tricks and he's trying to hook up the contractors.

[Honky Tonk]

I thought Duggan looked noticeably agitated when addressing this matter. Maybe we are starting to see why. Also, whats up with the love affair with the Lewand's? in this case 475k in annual salary? Nepotism at its finest.

Not impressed. LeDuff is going down for the 3rd time and clutching @ straws. Sorry Charlie.....

[Gistok]

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...ions/76370796/

Whatever your feelings about LeDuff.... he is on the scent.... because this is starting to reek.

Also, with the City Council asking the City's Auditor General to investigate.... does this mean the Honeymoon is over between the mayor and council?

Also this begs the question.... does speed of demolitions trump equal treatment for city contracts/contractors?

After reading all this.... one gets the sense that we're back in 2005....

[mikeg19]

[QUOTE=Gistok;495117After reading all this.... one gets the sense that we're back in 2005.... [/QUOTE]

Yea, but now we have a Bagger Daves. I'd say it's a net gain.