hard deadlines

I'd been meaning to get to a meeting of the Portsmouth Solid Waste/Recycling Study Committee for some time, especially after the kefuffle at the June Town Council meeting over their advanced calls to some potential bidders on the transfer station RFP. They previously met on Thursdays when I have to work late, so it wasn't until tonight, their first Wednesday meeting, when I was able to catch them in action at Town Hall.

Once we got inside, that is.

At 7pm, there were just 3 cars sitting in the rain in the Town Hall parking lot, and a dark and locked building. Committee member Judy Staven stood talking to Chair Ernie Caron, who sat in his truck, on his cell phone, calling Town Administrator Bob Driscoll. About fifteen minutes later Driscoll showed up with the Portsmouth PD to open the door.

While Driscoll fiddled with the alarm, Caron asked him, "What's a quorum?"

"You can specify it in your by-laws, but if not, it defaults to Roberts Rules of Order," said Driscoll, "Which is a simple majority."

"So, six..." Said Caron, looking around. There were four committee members out of 11 present. He got on his cell again and tried to call someone.

I have no idea of the legal status of what followed, vis á vis the RI Open Meetings law, but I identified myself as a reporter, and they sat in the Council chamber, so I stayed and took notes. They were very clear that they couldn't actually have a meeting, since they didn't have a quorum, but they decided to sit around and chat.

"If people show up, they show up," said member Bob Gessler.

"I know we can't get a report, but can we vote on minutes?" Caron asked. The general consensus was no.

The group discussed the recent pre-bid conference on the revised RFP for operating the transfer station. Staven reported that there were 3 companies there: ABC, Patriot, and Waste Management. "They asked Ernie and I some questions," said Staven. "I can't remember what."

"Goals?" Said Caron. "Recycling goals?"

"They're not goals," said Staven. "They're going to be mandated by Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRC). She described some back and forth with the vendor over tonnage and tipping fees. At one point, she said, "The Open Meeting law says you can talk about anything you want." (I'm not sure how this was germane, given that they had agreed this was not a meeting, but wev.)

There was further discussion of separating yard waste from trash and the impact on cost, especially given the smaller (35-cubic-yard) containers proposed for yard waste and the higher incremental cost of transporting them to Johnston. Then the discussion turned to the bidding process.

"I took a hit at the Council meeting because I made some phone calls," said Caron. "They were concerned about, 'What about the guy who didn't get a phone call?'"

"I only called one time to find out why companies didn't bid," said Staven.

The group looked over their agenda, searching for something to discuss.

"We could brainstorm a list of accomplishments," said Caron.

"We advised the Council on the RFP," said Gessler.

"We had the survey," said Caron.

"Right," said Staven. "And we got organized."

"We had Portsmouth Recycling Day with the Boy Scouts," added Caron.

"The survey and Portsmouth Recycles..." asked Gessler. "That's not the same thing?"

"Well," said Caron, "They happened on the same day..."

They drifted into a discussion of recyclables.

"I know a couple of Councilors want to get the recyclables out of there," said Staven, referring to the transfer station.

"The thing that bothers me is that you start putting them around town," said Caron, "It gets sloppy."

"You say, 'This is where you take paper, this is where you take cans,'" said Staven, adding that she had experience in the town she just moved back from. "That's what they do out West."

"It has to be monitored," said Caron.

"It was a big area I was in," said Staven. "They had it behind Township hall, and it was open 24 hours a day. I never saw a mess. If they can do it, why can't we?"

"They probably had more people on the DPW," suggested committee member David Gleason.

"The Boy Scouts were running it," said Staven.

"RIRC would get mad," said Gleason, pointing out recyclables are a revenue source. "In this town you need to have someone monitor it," Gleason said.

"Are we that different?" said Staven.

"Where would you suggest we put it?" asked Caron.

"Public works," said Staven, adding that it had been suggested, but, "Our administrator didn't want to hear it."

"Is there room there?" said Caron.

"There is," said Staven. "And it's close."

"If we could convince them that our footprint [at the transfer station] is tight, and put yard waste and construction debris at DPW," said Caron. "We could give it a try for four months. Those [DPW] guys go in and out of there all the time, that's an element of policing."

"It could be semi-monitored," said Staven.

"Are we tabling this until we see the new contract?" asked Gessler.

"The Town Council is opening bids on 1st," said Caron. "On the 11th, they will approve the contract."

"Won't that be on Tuesday the 12th?" asked Gessler. "Because of the holiday?"

"VJ day," said Staven.

"No," said Gessler, "It's not called that any more..." There was a moment as they tried to remember what Victory Day is called in Rhode Island. (Hint: it's Victory Day.) They agreed that they really needed to wait until they got the contract.

"Maybe that's why nobody showed up tonight," said Staven. "Because there's nothing left to do."

"Meanwhile," lamented Caron, "Yard waste and construction debris is at its height." Seeing no further business, he asked your correspondent if he had any questions.

"About the item on the agenda," I asked, "Develop plan for education and recycling in the schools?"

"Rick Taylor is our lead on this," said Caron. "He is supposed to touch base with Lusi to see if she's amenable. We haven't had a report on that yet."

"If we can get the kids into recycling they'll put the pressure on their parents," said Gessler. "According to RIRC, schools are hit-or-miss basis, depending on whether the teachers have motivation."

"Just asking because I checked and nobody seems to have talked with anyone at the schools," I said.

"We haven't even started that yet. I don't know if Rick is really in charge," said Caron.

"I guess someone would need to go talk to Dr. Lusi," said Staven.

"We're going to be hitting her at a busy time of year," said Gessler.

"Well," said Caron, "She's got an extra $20K-a-year bonus in her pay."

It wasn't a meeting, so it never adjourned, but it broke up about 8:30. I had to ask people to spell their names. Gessler was no problem, but I hadn't recognized the other committee member until he said, "Gleason. I'm related to ...Tailgunner."

"I figured as much," I replied, and left quietly.

Now any team can have a bad day. As I said, this was my first time there, so I have no idea if this non-productive non-meeting was representative of the usual caliber of the Solid Waste committee's discussions. As a citizen who cares passionately about recycling, and whose son has tried to launch a recycling program at Hathaway twice, I really, really hope not.

It used to be just the folks from the TV or newspapers who could make the jump to the other side of the table, but today brought the announcement that Kiersten Marek, lead blogger over at Kmareka.com has taken on the role of campaign coordinator for Cindy Fogarty's mayoral run in Cranston. Add that to Eileen Spillane and Thomas Kalinowski, the bloggers down in Middletown and Newport who are running for office, and RI Future's Matt Jerzyk going to the Democratic convention as an accredited blogger, and you know the netroots are finally being taken seriously here in Little Rhody.

Plus, if you have a few minutes, take a peek at the YouTube interview Kiersten did with Fogarty last week. This stuff is game changing: for the candidates, the communities, and the traditional media who are used to playing intermediary roles.

Way to go Kiersten. Yaay!

The Portsmouth School Committee, which has been struggling with the question of providing transportation to Prudence Island students, got a visit last night from Bruce Medley, co-owner of the ferry company currently located in Bristol. Medley proposed, and the committee supported in concept, a plan to relocate the ferry to Portsmouth.

The ferry had started here, Medley reminded the committee, but left because of parking issues. "We got shut out, so we went to Bristol," he said. But now, with the possibility of vacant land on the West side being excessed by the Navy, there might be options for a space "If we could get some kind of support for the concept that we could take to Sen. Reed and the Governor's office." He noted, "There's all kinds of Federal funding for ferry boats."

In addition to making the crossing much shorter, such a move would provide fuel savings, he said. "It's half the distance, and that's a big factor right now." But while Medley said he had initial favorable conversations with the Public Utilities Commission and the RI Economic Development Corporation, he admitted that other folks were interested in the spot, located by the fuel docks on the former Navy tank farm. "There are people in town who have other ideas for the property," said Medley. "This is not going to be an automatic everybody loves the idea."

The School Committee was receptive to Medley's proposal. "I think it's a great idea," said committee member Jamie Heaney. "I want to bring the residents of Portsmouth back home." They voted unanimously to support the concept of relocating the ferry.

The other major agenda item last night was a presentation by Janice Williams, an organizational consultant, on a proposed strategic planning workshop for the Portsmouth schools. School Superintendent Susan Lusi introduced Ms. Willams as a former educator with deep experience in organizational issues in schools, who could help transform the recommendations from the performance audit into a long-term plan. "The audit didn't necessarily provide vision," said Lusi, noting that one of the districts Ms. Williams had helped with the process was Duxbury, MA, a location which will be familiar to those partial to the Letters section of the Sakonnet Times. (See, for example, this and this, which prompted this and this. Good times. Good times.)

Williams described two possible types of workshop — a future search and an appreciative inquiry, and how they would engage all stakeholders in the Portsmouth education system to build a vision for the future. "A performance audit does analysis," said Wililams. "This creates a roadmap for all the things that would be done in a given year. The audit says, "insure" something happens, but doesn't say what to do to "insure" that something gets done."

Lusi noted that a five-year strategic plan is now being required by the RI Department of Education, and that the last plan, which they have continued to use, was put together in the mid-1990s. (Survivors of that team will remember the grim futuristic spectre of "humpmunch." But I digress.) Lusi also discussed RI Foundation grants available for strategic planning work, which could offset about a third of the cost of the $18-20K process.

The committee was unanimously behind the idea. It shows that the district is "continuing to move forward," said Heaney. Committee member Michael Buddemeyer noted, "Businesses that don't provide strategic plans are the ones that fail. This is going to set us up as a town to succeed." The vote was unanimous to authorize $5K to start the process moving.

A brief progress report on the next steps from the performance audit followed, with Lusi presenting the committee a worksheet showing the work underway which will be discussed at the next meeting. The committee approved additional teacher non-renewal recissions, leaving only two teachers with right of return on unemployment, according to Lusi. And Finanance Director Chris Tague reported on the year-end close, tentatively saying that the schools came out a little in the black ("Less than one percent," said Tague.) She received the thanks of the committee for her excellent work, whipping the district's finances into shape in just a little over a year. "I also want to thank my staff," said Tague, who also acknowledge the conversion to updated financial system software. "That made it a lot easier," she said.

Saved the best for last: as part of the package of new appointments, a new elementary IT curriculum integration specialist, Patricia Hill, was hired. For those who care about IT in our schools, this is a big deal. Curriculum integration specialists work with classroom teachers to make tech part of their lesson plans, and to ensure that our kids come out of the system with the IT skills they need to compete. PSD had only one such specialist — Gail Darmody — and while she did an amazing job, she was stretched trying to serve 5 locations. The addition of Ms. Hill will mean lots more time devoted to tech at the elementary level, a position that was specifically called for in the performance audit. Welcome, Ms. Hill.

The meeting, which started out with just 13 in attendance, adjourned after 9pm with only two reporters and the PCC camera guy. Of note: One of the folks I saw there was Angela Volpicelli, a Democratic candidate for the school committee, who has been coming to the meetings recently. I know you can watch on Channel 18, but it's good to see candidates showing up in person. Yay, Angela.

Film adaptations of comix and graphic novels run the gamut from laughably awful (say, Howard the Duck) to respectful but turgid (like, oh, Superman). Somewhere toward the right-hand side of that continuum is a sweet spot, rarely targeted by Hollywood, where the budget is spent not on stars or explosions, but on recreating the look-and-feel of the book and script doctors from the UCLA film school clutching copies of Joe Campbell's collected works are shot on sight. So truefans of a particular comic tend to hold their breath and devour the pre-production gossip, looking for straws in the wind. And, as someone who believes that Moore and Gibbons's Watchmen is not just one of the greatest graphic novels, but also one of the best sf works of the last twenty years, I've been anticipating the film, scheduled for release in March, 2009, with a mix of breathless anticipation and horror and mortal terror. Then, before the Dark Knight yesterday, I saw the trailer.

Go watch the trailer.

It's one thing to see the backlot photos, it's quite another to watch the Owlship rising from the East River to the Smashing Pumpkins. Suddenly seeing come to life "the light is taking me to pieces" panel, Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam, the Comedian going through the window, the oudchat on the elevator door in the background of the Veidt assassination attempt (we shall say nothing of the walkie talkie at 1:32), it is such rich, thoughtful detail; clearly an adaptation, a transcription for a different medium, but, at least in these few thousand frames, a faithful yet emergent one.

And the framing device, the long pullback through the gears? Only someone who really gets the beginning of chapter 4, and the linkage between Einstein, the blind watchmaker, and Dr. Manhattan, would embed this into the title. Unexpected, and yet richly syntonic.

Based on that, I'm willing to believe — even if only provisionally, that director Zack Snyder really can deliver the goods for this almost impossibly unfilmable book. We shall know next March.

Resources:
Watchmenmovie.com official site
Watchmencomicmovie.com
Production blog

ps: I told you it was rabid fanboy drooling.

This afternoon, Former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore called on America to launch a 10-year effort to produce all our electricity from renewable sources, echoing JFK's challenge to land on the moon. He neatly wraps up our current interlocking problems and traces them to one root cause: "We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change."

Watch Gore rock out loud:

The New York Times has the full (and annotated) speech.

The Portsmouth School Committee this evening unanimously denied a request to reconsider a bid award for replacing windows at the high school. The $290K contract had been awarded on June 25 to the Martone company, but this evening, the CEO and attorney for Trac Builders appeared before the committee to argue that their bid — which was $15K lower — should have been selected, and urged reconsideration. Five residents were on hand for the gripping exchange that followed.

Trac CEO Bill Tracey said that he was "shocked and disappointed" when he learned that his company was not awarded the contract despite a lower bid. "With all respect to Martone," said Tracey, the qualifications of Trac "far exceed theirs."

School Department attorney Richard Updegrove had a few questions for Tracey, centering on the materials submitted with the bid, and whether they responded fully and accurately to the requirements specified.

"The invitation to bid required installer certification from Kalwall [the manufacturer of the windows]," said Updegrove. "Your bid lacked this. Correct?"

Tracey agreed that this was correct, but noted, "In my 20 years of doing this, these things are easily cleared up post-bid."

Updegrove asked about the requirement for three references, attesting to the company's experience with similar jobs.

"In 20 years," said Tracey, "All the experience [questions are] post-bid. If someone was going to tell me that you were low bidder and someone was going to find a way to give it to a third bidder because of a questionable document..."

"Do you know what 'responsive bidder' means?" asked Updegrove.

"I do," said Tracey. "I'm not so sure you do. You can't make a certain document a matter of responsiveness. You can't make a post-qualification a matter of responsiveness."

The school committee weighed in. Vice-chair Dick Carpender spoke from his corporate experience responding to Requests for Proposal (RFPs). "If we want a letter that says certified installer," said Carpender, "I wouldn't want to find out you are not. My problem is, what if we award it, and can't do the job? These things are important to me personally. If they're not in the bid, in my opinion, that disqualifies the bid. Based on the best knowledge we had, that night, opening the bid, we made an award in good faith."

Facilities committee chair Michael Buddemeyer agreed. "Having the qualifications after the bid is awarded is difficult. If the RFP states submit A, B, and C, [and you don't provide them] it automatically disqualifies you."

Even Committee member Jamie Heaney was on board. "I concur with Mr. Carpender," he said, noting that the award was based on the "Best information at the time."

Tracey tried to argue that they were not given the chance to correct any deficiency. "After [submitting] the bid, our company had considerable conversation with facilities [director Don Davidson]," said Tracey. "Everybody knows us. We have no reason to think we needed to do anything else."

"Everybody may know you," replied Committee chair Sylvia Wedge, "But I don't think anyone here knows you. A paper submitted incomplete gets a failing mark."

Liz Harris, the Elmhurst PTO vice president, asked the committee to reconsider, hoping to save the school some money. "I don't need to remind you what $15K means to this district," said Harris. "$15K represents the entire profits of the fundraising at Elmhurst; that's a lot of money to us."

Carpender was sympathetic. "We sincerely appreciate all the work of all the parents, but there's two separate issues," said Carpender, stressing the importance of following the established process.

Updegrove summed it up neatly. "When invitations to bid go out, they have requirements," said Updegrove. "We're talking about responsiveness. The prevailing vendor submitted all of the requested documents. It is clear that Mr. Tracey's company did not. You have a contract that was executed with the prevailing party." He pointed out the risk of legal action from the prevailing bidder if the committee voided the agreement. "I can guarantee the cost of that will exceed $15K."

After some scab-picking questions by PCC, Inc. President Larry Fitzmorris (How many bids? 5. Range of bids? $232K-$340K) the committee voted unanimously to ratify the prior award of the contract to Martone.

In other business, the committee awarded contracts for sprinklers and fire alarms at the high school. Meeting adjourned at the ludicrously early hour of 6:46.

Note: Yeah, I know the blogging has been a little thin the past couple of weeks. Things have been crazy busy at work. Mea maxima culpa.

You can get the facts from the Washington Post — Stephen Payne, a Bush appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council and lobbyist, appears in a hidden camera video offering to arrange meetings with senior US officials on behalf of a former central Asian leader. Standard lobbyist/public relations consulting fare, except for one point in the video where he uses language that seems to imply a donation to the Bush Presidential Library should be part of the package:

"I think that the family, children, whatever [of Akayev], should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush library... enough to show they're serious."
— via Washington Post

HuffPo has more background here. You can see the original Times of London story that started the ruckus here. In the video, the person identified as Payne appears to imply that positive statements about the former president of Kyrgyzstan could be elicited from administration officials. (Which, to be fair, is what lobbyists do all the time, quite legally.)

The Chicago Tribune did more digging and has pdfs of e-mails, obtained from Payne, memorializing his conversations with the Times undercover team.

Of course, promising meetings and action from government officials in exchange for donations would be illegal and unacceptable, Payne notes in his e-mails. And in his statement, linked in the Tribune story, he asserts that the Times piece was "gotcha journalism" and that he is the victim of a "confidence game."

So we can be sure that nothing untoward was intended. End of story. Nothing to see here. Move along.