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| From Convention Ce... |
Convention center audit to include firm with Onorato ties - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review An engineering firm with ties to Allegheny County's top elected official will be among companies scrutinized by county Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty in a forensic audit of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center's construction and collapses.This is smoke. This is typical Pittsburgh.
Flaherty is forming a team of experts to review the center's design and structural failures, spokeswoman Pam Goldsmith said Wednesday. The audit will be completed in nine months, she said.
The audit is taking place as the insurer for the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority prepares to notify certain companies that they will be blamed for the Feb. 5 collapse of a beam supporting the second-floor loading dock.
The noise of this audit comes after the news of the past audit that has NOT been released or even completed.
We've got nothing but a house of cards and a massive white elephant.
The Convention Center is not being used to its potential. It can't be used to its capacity. The overall project was stretch that the taxpayers must pay to build and upkeep for decades to come -- if not a century.
However, I had a way to get us out of the quagmire.
The Convention Center should be sold. The Convention Center would be fine place for a slots parlor. Mr. Barden should own it, manage it, upkeep it, and pay taxes on it as well.
The city, county and its authorities need to sell off public ownership of various assets such as the stadiums and the convention center.
RAD tax incomes to these facilities should stop. The RAD tax needs a major overhaul.
As City Controller, I'll do a performance audit on the entire RAD tax legacy and account for our priorities. And, I'd offer solutions.
This audit from the county controller about building specs, subcontractors and donors to politicians is a joke. It is not going to uncover anything of substance.
The fix is to cut our losses and end all public subsidization of these boondoggles.
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| From Convention Ce... |
Update at 10:15 am:
Onorato is on KDKA Radio with Marty G. Onorato said that the article is much about nothing. Dan is right this time. The audit and efforts are nothing much.
"My county manager has a masters degree from CMU. These are the kind of people you want in county government."
The donations are going to everyone, because they are allowed.
Onorato has nearly $2-million in his campaign bank account now.
Onorato said, "When you raise $3-million, no one person dominates your fundraising... No one sticks out. If they get mad and leave, it doesn't stick out. I don't have an appearance problem.
Political influence is given out by Dan Onorato. He is in the process with the governing issues and political issues.
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Full article:
Convention center audit to include firm with Onorato ties
By Jim Ritchie
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, September 6, 2007
An engineering firm with ties to Allegheny County's top elected official will be among companies scrutinized by county Controller Mark Patrick Flaherty in a forensic audit of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center's construction and collapses.
Flaherty is forming a team of experts to review the center's design and structural failures, spokeswoman Pam Goldsmith said Wednesday. The audit will be completed in nine months, she said.
The audit is taking place as the insurer for the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority prepares to notify certain companies that they will be blamed for the Feb. 5 collapse of a beam supporting the second-floor loading dock.
Government officials have declined to discuss details of the insurance investigation -- except to confirm that one of the companies hired to help oversee construction of the convention center, ATS-Chester Engineers, of Moon, was not investigated, said Kevin Evanto, a spokesman for county Chief Executive Dan Onorato.
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The sports authority hired ATS, Turner Construction Co. and P.J. Dick Inc. to jointly manage construction of the $373 million convention center, which opened in 2003.
ATS-Chester -- which was hired last month to oversee construction of a $290 million Uptown hockey arena -- has ties to Onorato. Joe Viehbeck, an Onorato friend and ATS-Chester's vice president in the government affairs and sales office, actively supported Onorato's 2003 election campaign. County Manager Jim Flynn was the company's controller for 12 years until 2000, when Onorato, then the county controller, hired him.
ATS-Chester's political action committee gave $5,000 to Onorato's re-election campaign, records show. Company President Robert O. Agbede of Fox Chapel made a second $5,000 donation the same day.
"This is one of those gray areas that lead people to a lot of speculation," G. Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College, said of the political connections between the county and company. "That's a problem."
Any county projects awarded to ATS-Chester are based on merit and not political connections, Evanto said.
The controller's audit will include all companies involved in the Downtown building's construction, Goldsmith said.
"Our audit will be going back to the original design of the convention center," she said. "So, we'll be examining how it was constructed from the very start, and then everything through the occurrences that happened."
The ATS and Chester Web sites state the company was hired to conduct a "review of the convention center design documents," "monitor contractor performance" and "project management."
The ATS-Turner-P.J. Dick joint venture won a 2003 Engineers Society of Western Pennsylvania Project of the Year award for its role as construction manager of the convention center.
Evanto and ATS-Chester spokeswoman Edwina Kaikai downplayed ATS' involvement in the convention center project. The company's work did not involve the building's main structure and was limited to aspects of the project such as sewer connections, Evanto said.
Kaikai said the company did not perform utility work, and instead handled scheduling and budgeting matters.
The company "was not responsible for engineering, design, construction or quality control," she said.
There have been three structural failures at the convention center, including a truss collapse during construction in 2002 that killed a laborer. In 2005, a steel beam connection failed but did not reach the ground because a vertical beam held it up. Authority officials did not reveal that incident until February, when another beam fell and a section of the second-floor loading dock collapsed.
The authority tapped ATS-Chester to help investigate the cause of the 2002 collapse. The firm was among the companies called to help review the February mishap.
Flaherty's audit is on hold until his office retains experts who understand the engineering involved with the building, Goldsmith said.
County Council plans to review the February collapse at the end of the insurance investigation.
Councilman Jim Burn Jr., who chairs the public safety committee, said sports authority decisions are held to a higher degree of scrutiny because of the convention center problems.
"At the end of the day, this is all going to come out in the wash," he said. "Whether Chester did or didn't do something they were supposed to, we're going to know that."
ATS-Chester is one of the largest engineering firms in the region, with about 200 employees. The sports authority hired it and Oxford Development for $1.75 million last month to monitor construction of the Penguins' new Uptown arena.
Jim Ritchie can be reached at jritchie@tribweb.com or 412-320-7933.
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