Why Did Garland Roofing Spend $250,000 to Stop a Bill that would Stop the Scam?

Good Question.  

Follow the Money - if we heard right about what Garland is spending to stop California from plugging the massive leak of taxpayer dollars....  

What did the Bill do?  

Require Architects, Engineers to sign a form under threat of perjury/felony that they had not financial interest in the companies involved and Manufacturers to do the same with regards to the governmental agencies/personnel involved.

And so a manufacturer involved in "Lock Specs" is spending $250,000 to stop such a bill??? With the parties forcing the specs on the architects and engineers in the fight to stop the bill?

The Bill that was proposed and is dead was spoken against by the following organizations:  

CASH - California's Coalition for Adequate School Housing  

 Strange thing: Guess who the head of CASH is?

 The person inside West Contra Costa Unified School District that was adamantly insisting on using Garland again because they would destroy Garlands' "Warranty".

The SF Chronicle reported that fact re: no competitive spec on July 23, 2010, also denying the scam and kickbacks were going on in the two districts when no one had alleged either issue in both districts.....

 As many in the industry do know, and have written about - Garland does not have a Warranty but they do have a very costly, renewable Maintenance Agreement that masquerades as a Warranty.

Not so well known is that Garland insists on no equals to their products, not allowing alternates to be bid to "their" projects - while Carlisle products are used as Garland roofing products...

This became a problem at the Windsor School District north of the San Francisco Bay Area recently when Garland insisted that the very same Carlisle product being submitted as an equal was not....and a lawyer for the architect producing illegally sole-sourced specs "indignantly" denied reality....

Worse, Garland insisted that they "warrantied" the product for 30 years- but Carlisle, the manufacturer of the product, will not.

So it's too tempting not to ask: Is "CASH" a Freudian slip???? Hmmmmm.........  

CASBO - California Association of School Business Officials Involved in the Kern High School District (the largest in the state) - their Business Officials and Facilities personnel going regularly to CASBO and reportedly seen wining and dining with manufacturers at CASBO functions.....so how many School Business Officials in California are involved?  

CSA - Council of School Supervisors & Administrators

Why do School Administrators think it's OK to practice architecture and engineering without a license, and want to be able to order what products are used on a roof?

They have no idea what they are doing - such as what the substrate is, how the roofs should be installed to prevent failure of the roof and the structure below, what is best in the climate and existing conditions and uses on each roof....and more.

Garland Roofing - Garland has locked up many of the schools and state work in California, along with Tremco, in similar practices.

On May 30 of this year, I was able to download about 800 projects in schools and state work between them off a national database. And that was just about a months' worth.  

LAUSD - Los Angeles Unified School District - which was just written up in the LA Times for having built an outrageously expensive school - a "Palace"! - for $587 million while laying off 3,000 teachers - see it here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal_schools

They even made The Drudgereport for their outrageous excesses!

I hear that the LAUSD also built School "Palaces" in the $200 to $300 million or more range.....

 The CSU System - California State University System Cal State at various campuses are known for using the Lock Specs from the scammers....  

The American Institute of Architects Now that IS strange....I was on the Board of Directors of the AIA in Georgia for three years, but I never saw the kinds of things going on here there...but this is a different time and place, for sure.

Now why would a professional group not want its members to sign a document asserting with each project that they had no financial interests with the manufacturers in question? It's unethical - or was - and illegal to have such an interest in public works. It only seems practical - given what has been going on. It would be an asset to a n architect who wanted to do the right thing - it's a way to force involved governmental officials to stop the practice of forcing product specs on designers.....

The State Design Services Group Ditto as to the AIA.......  

AECA - Is this the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association or the Engineering Contractors Association (ECA)?

The latter got Public Contract Code No. 3400 changed so that competitive bidding is not required in specifications, in 2003.
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The common thread? - that raises the question that's sitting like a bull in the middle of a room?

  School Administrators, specifiers, and a manufacturer are trying to and have stopped the bill .....so one has to ask:  
If the $250,000 was spent by Garland Roofing to stop the legislature from passing a bill to save the taxpayers hundreds of millions every year, why are these organizations so concerned?  

Is it because the repeated reports of financial interests between the parties is true?  

It's a very, very good question. 

It's not an accident that one would see within a minute or two of each other the following types of personnel look at my blog from a major University - because it was the same I observed at the University of California Facilities Dept. were involved:
A Facilities Director
A Building Manager
A Design Professional (staff or otherwise)

There's a bull sitting in the middle of the room, with everyone playing "the King is walking naked but we are afraid of what we might see........"  

Why fight disclosures of financial interests and divesting yourself of them in doing public work?

An Architect Reverses Course - and makes a Roofing Spec Competitive

Finally!!! The word must be getting out!!!!

Now let's see if the California Legislature stops listening to the bamboozling of the lobbies hard at work for Garland - we hear - right now....blubbering as we speak up at the California State Capitol in Sacramento about having a 30-year "Warranty" - which we all know they don't have.....  

So who has caught on?


Perkins & Will - a worldwide architecture and engineering firm out of Chicago. As some of you know, they do a lot of large projects.

This time, they had put out bid specs on a school job....San Jose State University Student Union - Expansion & Renovation, Project 201 - and have reversed the sole-sourced roofing spec to make it competitive - in Addendum 01.  

Who was sole-sourced?

 Tremco - their "Tri Polymer Alloy Thermoplastic Membrane Roofing" Materials  

Who is being listed in the Specifications now?

 Four competitive products - using the nationwide standard spec language of listing at least three products and the term "or equal". [That standard spec language for every other state and federal work is no longer required by California's Public Contract Code No. 3400, which only requires one manufacturer to be listed, and the term "or equal" is not mentioned.]

1. Carlisle-Syntec Incorporated's "Sure-Weld TPO"

2. Firestone Building Products Company's "Ultraply TPO"

3. GAF Materials Corporation's "EverGuard TPO"

4. GenFlex Roofing Systems' "GenFlex TPO HY"

5. Or Equal.

Have actual tests to meet been submitted in a shortened product properties listing?

Yes, it appears so.

Are the properties to be met overly constrictive?

It appears not to be.

 Is the "Or Equal" language consistent throughout the Addendum?

 It appears so.

We will only know if a truly competitive bid and award is achieved.

And is there a real warranty specified?

It appears so.

For those in the roofing industry - you be the judge!

From what I can tell, it appears the specification as changed in Addendum 01 is a competitive bid spec.  

And if so, good going, Perkins & Will!  

Great Job!!!
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Here are the revised specs (appropriate portion):

Garland Warranty

A Roof Warranty should not require repairs to keep up that Warranty.

 But here we are - Garland does. And so does Tremco. 

Tremco executives left and formed Garland from an old flooring company, using the same tactics. See the next post....about the Tremco Warranty Don't be fooled.
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See the actual Garland warranty from a 2001 document reprinted here below this text. See also the MRCA Article on the Garland "30-year warranty" reprinted below. You can also see it at: http://roofingscam.blogspot.com/2008_03_02_archive.html#733669647137747897 _________________________________

Note in the next to the last paragraph of the second page of the Garland Warranty shown below the following "verbage" for the "30-year warranty":

"Inspection Requirements

Owner must request in writing an inspection of the roof at any time between the sixth and tenth month of each fifth-year starting with year 15 (15, 20, 25) of this warranty's duration. Upon receipt of such request, Garland will provide an inspection of the roofing system by a Garland representative to determine whether any repairs are required to make the system eligible for the continuation of this warranty, submitting a detailed inspection report to owner outlining the nature and extent of such required repairs such as repairs to physical damage, debris removal, drainage clearance, pitch box, coping metal edge and reglet seals and flashing reflectivity."

Did you get that? 

 It's not a warranty past 15 years if you don't pay for the expense of any "repairs" the manufacturer determines need to be done.

With the use of non-involved third-party Roof consultants from the RCI, you have a much better chance of getting only needed repairs done at any point, and with a real warranty, you don't have to repair to continue the warranty.

 And certainly not in the tens of thousands every 5 years.....as Garland does. IF the facility "remembers" to pay that payment.....on time. It's a tricky set of requirements.....
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The Garland "Warranty" The Midwest Roofing Contractor's Association Article First article to expose the Garland "Warranty" as nothing more than a highly-priced every 5-year "Maintenance Agreement" from the Midwest Roofer in the 1990's:

Dr. Keith Richman, Former Minority House Leader of the California Assembly, Passes Away

Dr. Keith Richman, former California Assembly Minority Leader that wrote a letter to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to ask for a major statewide audit in school roofing projects in 2005, has passed away this past weekend.

 Here is the news report on him:
http://hometownstation.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21227:richman-ucla-assembly-clarita-2010-07-31-07-37&catid=26:local-news&Itemid=97

 You can read about it here - and see who stopped this state from losing even many more hundreds of millions in the scam over the past 5 years.
http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/request-for-major-statewide-audit-in-ca.html

 In that effort in 2005, two letters were used from roofing industry personnel to verify the information I gave him - and which he found very credible.

 One of those persons who wrote a letter (and shown in that post) was Jim Miner, now in his 80's and a roof consultant in the Sacramento area.

Jim was very instrumental in getting this second effort done June 30th, with the hearing at the Statehouse. 

However, the other person who wrote a letter (also shown in that post), Steve Camblin and a former head of the Roofing Contractor's Association in California, passed away in the Fall of 2008.

You can read about him, here: http://www.rcacal.com/news/details.aspx?id=18

 Both men did much to help California as has Jim, and to all three, we owe a huge debt of gratitude.

What a loss for California!

The Curious Case of the San Francisco Unified School District - and the Roofing Scam

It's time to simply put forward the facts re: San Francisco Unified School District Reroofing Specs.

 In Summary: 

SFUSD Reroofing specifications shown below limit competition to Garland Roofing by not listing the actual tests used in testing the inordinately large number of properties described - only the general test method by which the test was run. 

See: http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2009/07/whoops-its-another-spec-blooper.html 

These are your classic "Restrictive Proprietary Performance Specifications" 

Such specifications employ insufficient information in an overly-massive listing of data - frightening off competitors. _______________________________________ 

Balboa Hich School, School of the Arts
San Francisco Unified School District 2008 Reroofing Package done recently

It is an approximately 50 page specification (inordinately large, with at least three roof types)

Please see under 30.2 A, this page below:

 1. Acceptable Manufacturers listed as "Garland, Johns Manville and Tremco".
We do not believe that Johns Manville or Tremco attempted to bid.

2. Test Methods are generally listed throughout the spec, but not the actual Test. 
The predominant Test Method is ASTM D5147, which tells the testing agency how much of the product to use in the actual Test, for instance, and which seems to be listed on most of the properties described for each material.

What Test was actually used for each product and every property is not listed. Which means that the products must not meet ANY Tests.

For Modified Bitumens, the tests that should be met are in the ASTM D6000's.

So what tests were used for the properties listed (labeled "Test"), what version, etc.?

And how does an alternate submitted by a bidder be evaluated when the actual test is not listed?

Or if there were none performed and none the products meet?

The latter is the most likely.

If one knew what the actual test was, then whether or not the values listed meant anything could be evaluated.

For instance, numbers could be picked within a range to be met - but it means nothing, because the range was the value to be met.

These are the "tricks" if you will to stop any potential competitor dead in their tracks - because they know they can't fight such a huge listing - and may most likely not know these details - especially that there are no tests being listed, only test methods, and it is not obvious that the products don't meet any tests!

In this Balboa Spec, the section "37.3 Flexible Flashings" on the page below have the same issues found in the previous section - limiting competition with a lack of listing the actual tests - a whole lot of missing tests, if you will - is this considered fraud in legal terms? In this part of the large Balboa Spec, the section "27.2 Standing Seam Metal Roofing Materials" on the page below have the same issues found in the previous section.

It limits competition by naming again the manufacturer whose extremely limiting spec language is used throughout this "bid" package.

 It is known in the industry that another metal roofing manufacturer private labels their product for Garland:

Update in 2013:  Imetco, the manufacturer that was private labeling metal roofs for Garland, is now owned by them, and has a plant in Tucker, Georgia.  A new plant has been built in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area.

Thurgood Marshall High School
San Francisco Unified School District 2008 Reroofing Package done recently

Please see under 2.2 A, B and C, these two pages, below:

1. Acceptable Manufacturers listed as "Garland, Johns Manville and Tremco".
We do not believe that Johns Manville or Tremco attempted to bid.

 2. Test Methods are generally listed throughout the spec, but not the actual Test. The Test Method listed is ASTM D5147, while no actual tests are listed for each of the properties.

ASTM D5147 is not a test for each of the properties it is listed by - so the values stated that the "test" meets have no relevance.

ASTM D5147 tells the testing agency how much of the product to use in the actual Test, for instance.

What tests IF ANY did each of these properties get tested by?

We don't know, because the spec doesn't say.

So no one can compete, actually - unless they do the same kind of "spec".

 Please see the comments above - much the same as herein.

Here are the Multi-Ply Hot Asphalt Roofing Materials listed for the project: And here are the same problems for the Flexible Flashing Materials listed, on these two pages: Dr. Martin Luther King Middle School
San Francisco Unified School District 2006 Measure "A" Bond Modernization March, 2010 Specifications bid out in the past two to three months 

Please see under 2.02 A, B and C, on these three pages, below:

1. Acceptable Manufacturers listed as "Siplast".
 This is a higher-priced product than most competitive roofing products, but not at the much higher price of Garland and Tremco. 

2. Test Methods are generally listed throughout the spec, but not the actual Test.

The predominant Test Method is ASTM D5147, which tells the testing agency how much of the product to use in the actual Test, for instance, and which seems to be listed on most of the properties described for each material.

And please see the comments above - much the same as herein.

For the first known product other than Garland getting all the work at the SFUSD - this spec is also limiting the competition in the same was as the two specs above.

See below: