Beaumont has Paid Webb & Associates almost $2.3 Million Without Any Public Contract Bids.
Albert A Webb & Associates Compliant November 15, 2017
On June 16, 2015, Beaumont, California, City Council Agenda Item 4.a. Albert A. Webb & Associates replaced Alan Kapanicas as Beaumont’s ‘Special Tax Consultant’ at the insistence of City Attorney John Pinkney and acting City Manager, now Transit Director, Elizabeth Gibbs-Urtiaga. The Agenda Item has been removed from the City’s Website.
On July 7, 2015 Agenda Item 8.m. Albert A. Webb was gifted a Contract not to exceed $10,000. The Contract is on the City’s Website, but the Staff Report has been removed: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/D…
It is important to note that Kapanicas made up the title of ‘Special Tax Consultant’ as an excuse to pay himself from the City’s Federal Municipal Bonds. Allocating additional Property Taxes and Filing the Tax Rolls with the County is a basic in-house accounting function.
Beaumont was illegally overcharging $6 Million in CFD Property Taxes. Once Webb and Associates took over the illegal overcharges increased to $8 Million. Albert A. Webb & Associates didn’t calculate the City’s CFD Property Taxes correctly; they followed the same scam as the previous administration.
To Date; Albert A. Webb & Associates has been paid over $2.25 Million without any Public Contract Bids. Most of the money was paid under the guise of Sewer Improvements, but the Special Tax Consultant position and the Debt Service Schedule Scam were also used to funnel money out of Beaumont.
‘Debt Service Schedules are the Invoices that Bond Trustees submit to Bond Issuers for Premium and Interest Payments. On April 5, 2016, Webb was awarded a $35,000 Contract by claiming that the City had to create Debt Service Schedules because as Webb Employee Shane Spicer Stated:
“The Bank doesn’t create those, their systems aren’t set up to do that, and in fact any information they had likely been destroyed. It was archived and then we learned later that it was destroyed.” http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/27328
At the March 28, 2016, Beaumont City Council Meeting Albert A Webb Employee Brian Knoll first appeared and presented a Slideshow on the status of Beaumont’s Sewer Plant and the City’s compliance deadlines established by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/27307
Brian Knoll stated that he had been working on the City’s Sewer Plant for “about 4 weeks”, but there was no Contract or any evidence that Albert A Webb & Associates had been hired to work on the Sewer Plant. The City had recently hired both Interwest Consulting and Willdan Engineering to provide Engineering Services for the Sewer Plant.
Knoll stated that the City’s Plan to Comply with the State Water Quality Control Board’s Basin Plan was already submitted to the Board in January, 2015 – and it was. Council Approved Wildermuth’s Plan on January 20, 2015. Santa Ana Executive Director Hope Smythe attended Webb’s presentation and voiced her concern that the City was changing their Basin Plan again. The City has a deadline of December 30, 2019, to construct a Desalter and Brine Disposal AND the Sewer Plant is at Capacity and has to be expanded.
During the Presentation Knoll repeatedly stated that although the City has already committed to the Basin Plan, the City should to do a Feasibility Study that includes Financial Feasibility to determine the City’s best path.
On April 13, 2016, Beaumont City Council Meeting Agenda Item 4.a. issued RFP for Treatment Plant Expansion/Salt Mitigation Project: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/D…
And that was the beginning of the end. On June 7, 2016, Albert A Webb & Associates was Contracted to create a Feasibility Study for Beaumont’s Sewer Expansion, Desalter, and Brine Disposal: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/27665
On August 2, 2016 Brian Knoll from Albert A. Webb & Associates presented a Title 22 Engineering Report that was never requested or Contracted. The Report says the same thing that Wildermuth Environmental’s 2007 Title 22 Engineering Report said; the City has to install the recycled water Infrastructure BEFORE the City can produce Title 22 Complaint Recycled Water: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/27897
Knoll stated that the City could use his Report after the Construction of the Infrastructure to produce Title 22 Recycled Water, which is the equivalent of paying for a smog check on a car before a catalytic converter in installed. How much Albert A. Webb & Associates was paid for the phony Title 22 Engineering Report is unknown because there was never a Contract to do the work.
On November 2, 2016, a Wastewater Feasibility Workshop was held. The City has removed Webb & Associates’ logo from the Presentation: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/D…
Albert A. Webb & Associates’ Feasibility Study recommend the City ‘go it alone’ because at Webb’s estimate of $89 Million; it would be cheaper than joining with Yucaipa, which has already constructed their Recycled Water Facility, built additional Sewer Capacity, and purchased space in the SARI Brine Line. Webb’s Feasibility Study did not include Financial Feasibility, Recycled Water, or the current condition of Beaumont’s Sewer.
Multiple Engineers and Wastewater Specialists have confirmed that Beaumont’s Sewer Plant is deteriorated beyond repair. The clay sewer line installed in the original part of town in 1929 are deteriorating and rupturing all over town. Ten years ago the City attempted to sell the Sewer Plant for $1.00 to the Beaumont-Cherry Valley Water District because the Plant is worth nothing.
For over 20 years Beaumont Elected and Appointed Officials have misused/embezzled every penny collected in Bond Funds, Mitigation Fees, and Taxes. The $60 Million Sewer Machinery & Equipment recorded on the City’s Financial Statements is a forged number.
At the Workshop Chairman Robert Martin from the Morongo Tribe stated that for five (5) years the City has promised the Tribe Recycled Water and the Tribe wanted the Recycled Water by the end of 2016. No one told Mr. Martin the truth; Beaumont has no Recycled Water Facility – they just have a Sewer Plant.
On November 7, 2016 Albert A Webb & Associates was gifted a $792,838.00 Contract for the Preliminary Sewer Design in an Emergency Meeting called before the newly Elected Councilmen were installed: http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/28602
Albert A Webb & Associates was scheduled to present the Preliminary Design by May 15, 2017. The Preliminary Design would be used as a template for Contractors to Bid on the Final Design.
On April 4, 2017 the Beaumont City Council Awarded a $3,120.600.00 Contract for the final Sewer Design to Albert A Webb & Associates six weeks BEFORE Webb released the Preliminary Design. The City claims to have done a Public Bid Contract, but it was not possible for any Company to Bid on the Final Design without the Preliminary Design, it wasn’t even possible for Webb to bid on the Final Design without the Preliminary Design, but they did: https://beaumont.civicweb.net/document/5713/Item%2024.pdf?handle=645B61FFD1E94CA995658BF188D592F5
On May 16, 2017, Albert A. Webb & Associates presented the Preliminary Design to Council. The price tag has increased from $89 Million to $108 Million without including Recycled Water, or the cost of laying the Brine Line through other cities: https://beaumont.civicweb.net/document/6601/Item%2022.pdf?handle=7A8CE7C62DFE403BBBDB4064D3B6EDEA
Beaumont City Council has passed two Sewer Fee Increases without Voter Approval as required by California Prop 218 to build the same Infrastructure, but the money is gone. The Council is now planning to pass another illegal Sewer Increase: https://beaumont.civicweb.net/…
From 2015 to Present; Albert A. Webb & Associates has been paid almost $2.3 Million without any Public Contract Bids. It was a violation of Contract Laws for Webb to do the Feasibility Study, the Preliminary Design, and Final Design; but the basis of the problem is that Webb Forged the Feasibility Study by not including a Financial Feasibility to create the need for Design Contracts for themselves.
Webb & Associates has taken over Beaumont’s two biggest avenues/excuses for funneling money out of the City: The Bonds and the Sewer Plant.