NOTA: Este articulo lo publicamos el viernes en español, hoy por petición de algunos amigos lectores lo publicamos en inglés, gracias
MIAMI SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 — Yesterday we met with the mayor of North Miami Beach, the good friend Anthony DeFillipo and we were really surprised with the great popularity of this politician, who seeks his re-election as mayor of that municipality of Miami Dade County. According to DeFillipo the campaign marches full speed ahead and hopes that this November 3 the residents of North Miami Beach will give him their vote, something we agree considering the good work done during his administration.
However, we talked about various issues in the city and one that we will be investigating and which caught our attention is the privatization of the water plant, and that its administration was handed over to an engineering company that changed everything it had promised.
It turns out that three years ago, North Miami Beach city commissioners voted to hand over their water company, considered the second largest water company in Miami-Dade County, to the experienced Jacob Engineering Group, but it didn’t take long for “the claws to come out” and begin getting out of the “contract agreements” he told us.
It was the same North Miami Beach commission led by Mayor DeFillipo that returned North Miami Beach taxpayers their water system and with that came a savings to their monthly payments, although the Mayor was a bit concerned with this decision to terminate the contract with Jacob.
According to DiFillipo, on August 4, in a 5-2 vote, commissioners chose to terminate the $190 million agreement with Jacobs Engineering Group.
We must say that the company, CH2M who won the contract in 2017 was actually bought by Jacobs a few months later.
The discord with the Jacob Engineering company occurred after it did not comply with the agreements of the contract signed in 2017, since it did not create the cost savings they expected, and residents saw increases in their water bills instead of savings.
Like many large companies do when they go to any tender, Jacob offered less than their competitors to obtain the coveted contract, and then ask for help, however, this time the North Miami Beach administration said Enough! to Jacob Engineering and canceled the contract.
According to our conversation, after landing the $190 million contract, Jacob changed the billing system from every three months to monthly for single family homes in 2018, which is when residents began complaining that the bills were unusually high.
To the best of our knowledge, water usage charges increased 18% this year to compensate for the loss of revenue after the billing change, a city source told us.
The lack of the Jacob Engineering is the same pattern used by many large companies that regularly mock the bidding committees and systems, by offering less and after winning the contract asking for assistance, increases or so-called “Order Changes”, increasing the cost in the end, an increase to the taxpayers, in many occasions the officials of the county or of the municipalities agree.
It is time for those officials who make up the committees that vote FOR the companies to start holding these companies accountable for their bids and actually start looking out for the taxpayers money, there are times when a company that comes in first is not the best for those who ultimately have to pay, THE TAXPAYERS.
