DEP CHIEF'S FLOOD OF WOE
By JESSICA SIMEONE, NY Post
Perhaps next time, she'll call Roto-Rooter.
The city Department of Environmental Protection's chief contracting officer is losing $6,290 worth of annual leave after agency personnel were deployed when her home flooded.
The Conflicts of Interest Board arrived at a settlement with Carol Fenves, in which she agreed to forfeit 12 days of annual leave, plus the value of services, for getting a DEP crew to pump water from her Queens basement in July 2007.
Fenves, who has been with the DEP since 1992, violated the conflicts-of-interest law when she asked for and received services that would otherwise not be available to the general public.
8 comments:
Typical.
She was so self righteous when our kids went to school together. I am not surprised she took advantage of her position.
Why didn't Commissar Death and Taxes fire her?
He tells us that he's the world's best manager, a Titan of Commerce. The best possible person to be elected as mayor.
Why does this happen, then? Why can he not control this corruption?
Oh! Yeah! Because he's into the much more valuable corruption; stealing private property to gave to his extremely wealthy developer friends for a few bucks in return.
He's a great manager, but he's far too busy to actually manage.
Busy stealing from taxpayers.
I've been trying to get the DEP to pump out MY property after it rains for 15 years!
That is a just punishment. She should have called a plumber like the rest of us. To be fair, however, she paid the cost of the service and was publicly embarrassed. She does not need to be fired unless there is a pattern of this type of thing.
Dat shit sure came home to roost!
I wish that Bloomberg had suffered a bilge water backup!
Can you imagine the hissy fit he'd throw with turds floating around in his townhouse ?
To Taxpayer
When a person in charge of the largest procurement capital budget in NYC, is responsible to determine the need to contract out or do in house, is responsible for awarding contracts, approving cost overruns and time extensions, helps decide who gets non bid contracts, etc. can show this poor judgment, you really have to wonder how they can be retained in this position of oversight.
It's a major conflict of interest. It's likely just the tip of the iceberg of the persons character.
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THE CITY OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER
1 CENTRE STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10007-2341
WILLIAM C. THOMPSON, JR.
COMPTROLLER
John Goddard Director
Office of Contract Administration
September 9, 2009
Ms. Carol Fenves
Agency Chief Contracting Officer
City of New York
Department of Environmental Protection
59-17 Junction Blvd
Flushing, NY 11373
TELEPHONE (212) 669-4906
Facsimile (212) 815-8568
WVVVV.COMPTROLLER.NYC.GOV
EMAIL:jgoddar@COMPTROLLER.NYC.GOV
RE: Contract No. 20090037851, Brookfield Construction Associates, LLC (BCA).
Dear Ms Fenves,
This letter is to inform you that the Comptroller's Office has decided to register the above
referenced contract between the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Brookfield
Construction Associates, LLC (BCA) for remediation of the Brookfield Avenue landfill in Staten
Island. Although this office continues to have serious concerns with DEP's management of this
procurement, after receiving information and material not previously provided by DEP, we have
determined that it is appropriate to register the contract. This decision is based in large part on the
critical nature of the work and the expected public health and environmental benefits, as well as
our desire to ensure that scarce State resources committed to the project are not lost. Registering
the contract now will also serve to ease the burden the community has thus far endured because of
DEP's poor management of the procurement.
Nevertheless, given the importance of this project, we remain troubled at how inadequately it has
been handled by DEP. In addition to the concerns previously articulated, there is also the problem
of DEP issuing bid documents before State funding was secured as well as the 2-year delay
between bid opening and contract award. Among other things, such a protracted delay puts the
City at risk of paying too much for the required services, as the bidders had the legal right to
withdraw their bids forty-five days after the bid opening. DEP was also wrong in finding Conti,
the initial low-bidder, non-responsive due to what was clearly an error in judgment by the firm
regarding the pricing oflandfill cover material (and not a failure to comply with material terms of
the bid specifications as characterized by DEP). In this regard, but for the fact that Conti would
have had the legal right to withdraw its bid due to DEP's delay in awarding the contract, the finn
should have been held to its original bid submission, which would have saved City taxpayers $74
million.
Again, due to the significant interests of the City and its residents in commencing the remediation
work at Brookfield, the Comptroller's Office is registering the subject contract. We trust,
however, that DEP will review and strengthen its procurement operations to address the issues we
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Ms. Carol Fenves
September 9,2009
Page 2
have raised so that this type of situation does not arise again. If you have any questions or
comments regarding this matter, please feel free to contact me or Ray G. Girgis, PE at 212-669-
2109.
Yours truly,
John Goddard
cc:
John Graham
Marla Simpson
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