Fact Check: Tykoski: Donated Labor Kept Costs Low

[XLFD]

 

 

The above article was a good old attempt at damage control by John Shay and political friend, our new Fifth Ward Councilor Nick Tykoski, and the recent disclosure by our local paper of some disturbing, yet incomplete facts by the insipid intrepid reporter, Kevin Braniczewski, the origin, byline et. al. included for analysis sake.  Our fact finding team has been beleaguered in checking this story out, effectively wading into this project.  The article above has 10 superscripts, that can be hard to see unless you magnify the picture, but they appear wherever a white box is, and they denote a significant point that should be made at that point in the article.

 

1- As determined in fact-check-rotta-city-foia-issues-continue the City Council may have voted to back the City Manager's decision, but this was based on faulty premises made by the same law firm that has no real grasp on FOIA issues, as can be seen in their briefs (legal briefs, ladies) in Swiger/Rotta v. City Of Ludington (2011).  What City Attorney Richard Wilson claims are "invoices" are checks and statements, and not one is assigned a reference number that refers to those records.  There are actually three missing statements, totalling nearly $30,000.

 

2- This refers to the 2008 TIF which has inside it Nick Tykoski (p. 2) being on the DDA (aka Downtown Ludington Board) along with Heather Venzke as the Community Development Director, as well as the projected $150,000 for signage to be done between 2009-12 (p. 22) and one of the 8 featured projects for the TIF increase. 

The article would assign a $100,000 savings over that period by granting that project to a local signmaker.  I would dare say, we could have saved $150,000 by nixing the whole solid gold paint wayfaring signs concept, but let's cede that point for now.

 

3- The DDA signage committee, which Nick sat on in those prior years, is probably where Nick rationalizes that he did these designs and prototypes for free.  The free designs and prototypes were then realized into real money in the fall of 2009 with this $15,001 invoice with Venzke's and Shay's initials at the bottom.  This, of course, was without any bids (or any contracts), as those cost extra money to print out, and send to other companies not affectionately affiliated with Venzke. 

Doing such work is unethical and unlawful, notably MCL 15.323 section 2 says what must be reported and recorded in the official minutes and elsewhere when a public servant does work for the public entity he serves.  It was not, and it never was noted officially.  MCL 15.327 says the penalty for such corruption is a misdemeanor.

Venzke or Nick could also be found guilty of violating sections 3,5,and 7 of this law, MCL 15.342 for this "oversight".

 

4- Apparently, designing and making prototypes could have cost that extra $100,000 except for Nick doing it for free!  As a member of the DDA Sign Committee whose profession was 'signs' he had a hand in creating signs that fell into his forte, and an unethical opportunity to design and charge for the 'prototypes' that one would have to presume was the September 2009 $15,001 charge, since bids weren't even sent out for the non-existent "contract" until April 2010.  The 22 karat gold paint undoubtedly was an added cost cutting measure.

 

5- He was on the DDA Sign Committee, I'm sure he helped out.  His attendance record for DDA meetings was abyssmal, however.

 

6- As it was a ballpark figure that was $100,000 too high, can the citizens expect a tax break for once during the summer tax-raising season? 

 

7- Shay says a Grand Rapids firm bid for the work.  Have you ever knew someone that lies so much that he can't keeps his facts straight?  John Shay is one of those people, at least I have found that in my limited dealings with him.  In court documents, he has sworn affidavits that are definitely false, and that he knew when he filed them, that they were false.  This is perjury.

Here he says Nick wasn't the only bidder, but in this 1-24-2011 FOIA Request he certifies in his reply that there was no other company's bids, and in this 5-10-2010 DDA Meeting, (p. 1) Amanda St. Hillaire confirms that "Tye's Inc. was the only one received."  Then follows two votes, neither of which are logged as to whether the votes were approved or defeated, in clear violation of MCL 15.269 (1) which states that minutes must have this information in any open meetings, a misdemeanor.

So, Shay has either violated the FOIA by not disclosing the GR bid, or blatantly lied to Ace Reporter Braniszeszki. 

 

8- This document shows that Nick's company did make an estimate/bid on the signage contract on 4-20-2010 and yet these AA, BB, and CC show that his prospective bidding competitors weren't faxed requests to bid until 4-27-2010-- a week after Nick sent his finished bid in, the competition finally got their first indication of the plan.  And these faxes were full of complexities and check out the last two paragraphs of this "friendly" request for bids, p. 2 and p.3.  I'll bet Nick's request from Heather was nicer.  Note that the bids were expected back in 3 business days as well.

 

9- There never was any "contract" with signage to vote on, and the poor secretary skills of Les Johnson in the DDA never had any vote registered at the 5-10-2010 meeting.  No referencing to Nick doing sign work for the City's DDA was ever in any of the meeting's minutes-- until my latest FOIA appeal this Monday.

 

10- Not having a vote on issues does not make anyone less culpable to the laws broken when they are the one of two people signing the invoices and/or checks, as Shay and Venzke did in all the DDA invoices from Tykoski's firm.

 

The fact finding analysis does not include the local ordinances forbidding the lack of contracts for such projects, forbidding the lack of competitive bids for projects over $10,000, and a whole laundry list of ethical problems in a dusty old section of the City Charter.  How quaint, that our local paper praises all the parties involved with such chicanerie.

[AQUAMAN]

From a totally objective business standpoint and position, no one entity asks for complex bids for a job in just 3 business days, it's a fact, even being faxed into these bidders, that they usually get at least 30 days to bid. So, what was the hurry? The RUSH to get those competing bids in real quick? Reason and common sense would say the "fixed agenda" was in place, that of having a fiance have advance information, that which would give Nick's a bid in to the COL even a week in advance of others that would be asked to participate, in a big hurry. Even if you are blind and deaf, if you can read this people, do you think this is proper procedural conduct on the part of any city employee in the course of their duties to do their job for the people's best interest? Even if someone says it's only $50K, not the over-inflated estimates of $150K? I'll bet the total signage costs, which will never be unveiled, cost only a fraction, like $10K in real dollars, not make-believe dollars, as they would have us peons and masses believe. Methinks NOT, what do you think?

[XLFD]

Even if the DDA's Venzke  gave them a reasonable time period to respond, and wrote a better developed and less rude bid request, the fact that Tykoski's bid was already prepared prior and submitted to that organization, shows he had an unfair and unethical advantage in the bidding process.  What happened then and six month's prior is bid rigging which is a federal offense with potentially huge sanctions. 

[XLFD]

Dale, what part about being on the sign committee, having already done $15,001 of non-contracted work without bids the prior year and having a bid already prepared and in the pocket of your fiance who chairs that organization a week before anyone else ever sees a notice to bid is not unethical to you?

[XLFD]

You make it sound like I'd be overqualified for that position, Dale.

Seriously though, even if we didn't have a totally inept City Manager in John Shay, I am totally against the institution.  I explained the majority of that back in this thread of-democracy-and-city-managers.  But I've found the CM system is a whole lot worse than that with experiences with all aspects of the City government since then. 

Is it any mystery that our founding fathers never envisioned such an undemocratic, unconstitutional system for local governments?

[masonco]

XLFD  

Of course Nick would have already prepared the bid. Of course he had first hand knowledge. Ummm it probably was his idea put into his little princesses head who then went to the king and said we need to request bids. Just saying it is so obvious when they are married and only one person has time to prepare a bid within 3 days. Nick probably had knew in advance of any other possible bid amounts and was able to bid under them. Just saying what it looked like to me when I read the article.

[XLFD]

Masonco,

He never actually had to do any bidding for doing $15,001 of work back in 2009.  Here's the "Special Budget Meeting" back on Sept. 29, 2008 budgeting $15,000 for new signage for 2009.  Nick, as he did in the 5-10-2010 meeting (where the signage "bids" were decided). 

He was present at this 9-14-2009 meetingwhere $20,000 was put in the budget for signage for 2010, with no comment, but it was noted in page 2 that way faring signs would be going up next week. 

Again, this was a full half of a year before any other bids were sent for by the DDA.  Nick didn't need to underbid anyone else, because there was no one else during 2009.  Nor did Nick need to underbid in 2010, because the process was rigged so others could not feasibly get any bids in on time. 

[XLFD]

Shay's an intelligent guy, and I'm sure he is aware of the ten part series on the Downtown Development Authority we have done which hasn't found too much on the up-and-up there.  Shay is also a charismatic guy, and if you don't have the power to see through his facade and his glibness, you may very well get a favorable impression of him. 

But Shay does have weaknesses.  He presumes as long as he takes care of his relationship with the City Council that he will be invulnerable, particularly since his neighbor, Mayor Henderson shares his political philosophy and his hubris.  Apathy has been sown amongst the townsfolk by the inevitable acts of Ludington City Hall, and that is perhaps their biggest strength.

I have plenty of weaknesses, but I'm too dumb to know what they are.

[masonco]

I figured that he did not have to do any bidding. If he did, no one can convince me that if there were any other legitimate bids he would be given a heads up to be sure his was lower. 

When they commented no other company bothered to bid, that was a red flag to me. Why would no other local company not want to take time to bid unless they knew it was already rigged? Then of course Nick's bid would be much lower for the poor company that did put in the labor to make a bid. I'm sure he knew what their bid was so was able to make a public bid much lower. His pocket would be padded in other ways to make up for the undercutting...err I mean bidding under reasonable rates.

[Willy]

I'm wondering why the LDN would print this article if the public wasn't interested in this story. If the public didn't care or wasn't in anyway involved it wouldn't make sense for the LDN to waste it's time putting the article together. It also begs an answer as to why LDN is so insistent about twisting the information  and leaving out crucial information to make their  point. It's one thing for the paper to ignore X's information but it's another thing to purposely print misleading information. And are they trying to tell the public that the design costs and prototypes were 66% of the signage cost? The article also claims that the project was over a 3 year period and cost a total of $50,000 and  that it has been completed. I guess they are admitting that the City intentionally spent 3 years doling out work and money to a local contractor while ignoring the bidding process. In my opinion this article is very incriminating as to the City and Tykoski's signs involvement in a potential violation of the bidding process. If federal funds were used for this project I think, in my opinion, that there might be violations committed by the City regarding Federal laws such as a requirement to have bids from minority contractors.

[XLFD]

Good point, Willy.  Even though federal funds were not used in this program, the DDA uses federal and state funds for other projects, and we will visit such a project soon and learn of such problems.

This article was meant for the casual reader, as it did open up more questions from a variety of non-casual readers that I acquaint myself with.  I always make sure they're not casual by rousting them off their couches before they read the paper. 

The appearance of impropriety definitely is below the thin facade of benevolent/economical service by Tye's Inc. expressed in the article.

[masonco]

Did you not notice the article was not on front page but buried where most don't bother reading it? I therorize that LDN wrote it to get Shay & gang off their backs. LDN knows that Shay & gang can destroy them if they don't meet their demands.

Reminds me of the Chicago mob mentality.

[Willy]

Dale
It would be helpful if you could clarify your questions. I'm assuming your question would be rephrased as follows, "Aside from the alleged bid-rig issues and focusing only on a hypothetical, would there have be any criticism if Nick's bid were the lowest if he was not connected to Heather, had not performed prior work without bidding, was not able to submit a bid prior to the open bid process, and if there had been open, fair and competitive bids submitted by other contractors"?