Well, what else can we expect from the administration but a lot of smoke and mirrors? Nevermind that the council still has yet to see a report about the piss poor siding job, now they want to talk about local contractors. Good stuff.
For almost a year several city councilors have been asking for a detailed report from the public works department and Mortenson on what local contractors were used and how much local materials were purchased, and have not been given anything.
I’m not talking about a list of local companies and manufacturers who subcontracted their work out to state vendors. I want to see an actual list of local contractors who hired local workers and bought local manufactured products. Instead we just get a bunch of bull and fluff;
Going into the project, city officials set the goal of using 85 percent local labor. Last week, construction managers estimated that they slightly exceeded that goal.
“We knew our local contractors have the experience and the qualifications to construct this project for Sioux Falls and the state of South Dakota,†Mark Cotter, director of Public Works, said in an email. “As a community, we all benefit when we support one another.â€
Reports from the city and Mortenson Construction, which is managing the project, show that local contractors were awarded more than $60 million worth of work. That’s closer to 65 percent of the project costs through July, but not reflected in that number is when contractors hire a local company to work for them.
Read the whole story, and you get the gist, a lot of money was moved through contractor offices in Sioux Falls, but without the real numbers about materials and labor, all we have is a bunch of fluff. Why not release the true numbers? Because you will realize that there isn’t a lot of sweat equity from Sioux Falls workers in this project, just a lot of greedy brokers.