(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
Augusta is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to permanent ambulance services for its citizens. That’s because commissioners kicked a proposed Gold Cross EMS contract to the road so often, the road came to a dead end.
Opinion
So, Augusta commissioners will have less than 24 hours – if that long – to do something a majority have been unwilling to do for the past year and a half. And that is to read, consider and approve a contract proposal from an ambulance service provider who responded to the bid requests the city procurement department sent out last week. And that proposal, gleaned and chosen by city staff as the best from possibly dozens of bids from providers, must be submitted to the state by 5 p.m. Friday, along with Augusta’s request to become the state-approved zone provider for Richmond County.
Meanwhile, Gold Cross recently gave up the zone but will continue to provide service on a month-to-month basis, an agreement that commissioners approved last week before voting to pursue the zone. Immediately afterward, Procurement Director Geri Sams sent out 153 Requests for Proposals to providers which apparently caught commissioners by surprise although Mayor Garnett Johnson said he knew about it and approved.
“The county attorney and procurement director made the decision based on current procurement rules,” Johnson said. “I trust their judgment. There was not a motion to do a bid, but I think for the sake of the process it should be done although it is a short window.”
MORE: Column: Augusta’s been through some dark times, but things may be looking up
Not Everybody Agreed. But Do They Ever?
“I wasn’t aware of these bids going out, and I’m not happy about it,” said Commissioner Catherine Smith McKnight.
Commissioner Alvin Mason said commissioners had no idea what they would receive from the proposals, nor what it would cost, and that they’d have to make a decision in a short time period.
And when commissioners met Tuesday, Commissioner Sean Frantom was loaded for bear.
“What was put in an RFP wasn’t even discussed with this body, but yet when we get it back we’re going to have to live with it and vote on it,” he said.
“What was put in the RFP was normal for Augusta, Georgia,” Sams replied. “We followed our normal guidelines.”
“I’m not disagreeing with that,” Frantom said, but the fact that we had discussions about a contract with other terms and conditions, and then this contract was put together with terms and conditions that basically were from 2018, 2014, Fire Chief (Chris) James, things back in that day that were a part of it. “My question is once we get it, we can’t make any changes. Is that correct? Once we vote it up or down next week – whenever that happens. Is that correct?”
“This will go through the normal process of an RFP, but just a quicker process,” Sams said.
Frantom wasn’t placated.
“Basically, we’ve created a contract that nobody up here had any input on, and now – I’m just trying to confirm that when this comes back this body will just say, ‘Up’ or ‘Nay’ whatever’s on the paper,” he said. “And that is my question.”
“Very, Very Close to Stepping Across the Lines”
“Mr. Frantom, I understand. I understand your concerns, and all of your concerns were considered at the writing of this RFP,” Sams said. “And I strongly suggest that we follow the guidelines and procedures as written, and I’d like to respectfully ask this commission to just let us handle this, bring back to you some suggestions.”
Sams warned that they were pushing her to a level they were getting “close, very close, very, very close to stepping across the lines.”
“I don’t want to challenge you by no means, but if this process does not work. It’s not like Augusta has a second option,” she said.
MORE: Column: Commissioners open a news chapter in ‘Politics 101’
When Can We See It?
Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Garrett asked when commissioners would have an opportunity to see the contract they’ll have to vote on.
“All I’ve heard since I’ve been on here is, ‘We didn’t have a chance to see the contract,’” Garrett said. “I’m asking when will the commissioners who will be asked to make a decision get to see it.”
“We are going to make that happen,” Sams said.
“Stay Out the Way!”
Commissioner Bully Bobby Williams, who keeps a running commentary on developments he doesn’t like under his breath, interrupts people and talks out of turn, issued an order.
“Allow the procurement director to do their job,” he said. “I think we should stay away from it and leave it alone! Stay out the way! Stay out the way!”
Williams is such a buffoon, it’s hard not to like him.
Intuition at Work
I don’t want to beat the Gold Cross horse to death, but a few years ago I wrote a Halloween satire and predicted that then-commissioner and current felon Sammie Sias and others who wanted the city fire department to take over ambulance service would cut Gold Cross’s budget to the point the company would drive their ambulances until the tires came off.
Well, I don’t think things have gotten that bad with Gold Cross yet, but I believe that Sias and others such as former commissioners Ben Hasan, Dennis Williams, Hardie Davis and the commission lemmings have done everything they could to bankrupt Gold Cross. I suppose because it’s a private company. Capitalist, not Socialist government-run, and under their control. Now, after the damage they’ve done to Gold Cross, they all want to bitch and moan about slow response times. They even put on exhibitions about them at commission meetings with lots of hearsay testimony.
Not that I’m a seer or anything who can predict the future, but when everybody was talking about what to do with Regency Mall, I wrote that it could be turned into a strip mall. A real strip mall with strippers and poles and something for everybody. I wrote:
“Maybe the out-of-towners could buy Regency Mall, set up shop there and solve the problem of the eyesore. Although it’s probably not zoned heavy industrial, six commission votes could change that (they did that very thing last year), and Regency Mall could become “Everything You Ever Wanted in a Strip Mall Under One Roof.”
There could be nude dancing at one end, lap dancing in the middle and line dancing at the other end for the old folks. There could be something for everybody, from Peeping Toms to perverts and dirty old men.”
I never expected anybody to take any of that seriously. And not even I would be dumb enough to suggest we build a strip club on city property and have the executive director of the Augusta Land Bank Authority take the lead on the project, especially even before the commission voted on a new adult entertainment ordinance.
Now the nice tax commissioner and land bank authority Chairman Chris Johnson said the property across from Regency Mall that the authority’s executive director Shawn Edwards was “building an investment group interested in pursuing an adult entertainment venue” on was not city property, but land bank property.
Uh-huh, but it still gets money from the city, most recently $1 million of its American Rescue Plan money. And four of the authority’s seven board members are members of the Augusta government.
Every Day is Groundhog Day in Augusta
Ground Hog Day always gets me to thinking about the movie of the same name starring Bill Murray and the similarity to Augusta government. Murray is a weatherman who finds himself in a time loop and lives the day over and over until he gets it right.
In Augusta, people live with some of the same issues over and over because the government can’t seem to get it right. How many years have people been talking about cutting the grass. And does anybody really believe they’ll get it cut any better this summer than they did last summer, no matter how many private contractors they hire? And how about the flooding in East Augusta and Hyde Park? The only way it will stop flooding there is if it stops raining, despite untold millions of tax dollars being poured into flooding projects.
And just how many pay studies does it take to improve the government? They had one when Janice Jackson was administrator, and they’re having one now. Pay studies aren’t cheap, and they always recommend raises for most employees, many of whom are already overpaid. Everybody knows it. Otherwise, so many city properties wouldn’t be falling apart.
At the Augusta Commission’s Administrative Services Committee meeting last week, members voted to spend $64,231.71 for water mitigation and drying of structure at city-owned Craig Houghton school because the pipes burst during the freeze. The pipes also burst at the Boathouse, creating such a mess the rowing team can’t use it.
Wouldn’t you think some of the overpaid directors and deputy directors would have thought to cut the water off and drain the pipes or something before the freeze? I mean, it wasn’t like the freeze slipped up on anybody. Weather forecasters hyped it for at least a week.
“Going Around in Circles”
And then there’s Diamond Lakes Regional Park where the restrooms have been closed to the public since last summer. Venues such as Diamond Lakes that host sporting events pump more than $25 million a year into the local economy.
Since 2018, the city has spent $982,181.60 on the restrooms and drains at Diamond Lakes, and last week, Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Garrett and commissioners Alvin Mason and Wayne Guilfoyle tried to get some answers about where the money has gone. It was a tale of contractors who got paid but nobody checked on their work, the same work being done by different contractors with still no fix and so forth and so on.
Work has currently stopped because of an issue with the drains, and a plumbing company will be doing a video and camera inspection of storm lines, after which there will be an assessment of the building from top to bottom to make sure any remaining problems will be identified and corrected, according to Ron Lamkin, interim central services director.
MORE: Column: In with the new mayor and commission, out with the old . . . maybe
Cha Ching!
“If I’m hearing correctly, we’re just now doing an assessment of the total structure,” said Garrett. “I thought that was part of what got us to the point a couple of years ago when we started this process. It seems kind of like we’re going around in circles.”
Cha Ching!
“Well, I don’t have anything that was done previously,” Lamkin said. “In doing the work we’re doing now, we’re finding some different things that’s going on with the building that needs to be corrected.”
Cha Ching!
“When we were out there, myself and Commissioner Garrett it was brought to our attention that some of the drainage work that had already supposedly been done and paid for was not done correctly, and we haven’t held anybody accountable for that,” said Mason. “Yet monies have been spent. Taxpayers money has been spent. And now it appears we’re going to do some of the same things that have already been done.”
Cha Ching!
And so it went around and around until Mason asked the all-important question.
“What time frame are we looking at that we can tell our constituents that are coming to patronize our park when they can legitimately use the restrooms in a manner that should be conducive to operating in 2023 without having to use a Port-O-Pot that may or may not have been be cleaned up or maybe spilled all over and whatnot,” he said. “You get the general idea.”
“Once the assessment is done, and we have a paper document of everything that’s actually wrong with the buildings, we can give you a timeline,” Lamkin said.
Cha Ching!
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
