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.
_____________________________________________
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?
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.
_____________________________________________
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?
