City of Beaumont Pays for Work on the 8th Curb and Sidewalk project that wasnt completed

At the May 16^th 2017 the city council approve change order No. 1 in the amount of $84,241 for the 8th Street Sidewalk Improvement Project to G.J Gentry General Engineering, Inc. Gabe Ewing reported this matter on the Mind your own Beaumont Facebook Page back in July 2017. I reviewed what happened and agreed with Gabe that there was problems with this type of change order as it appeared to have very little city oversight. Item 19 which was on the consent calendar for change order #1 showed an additional 282 LF of fence relocation at $45.00 per LF which in my opinion was excessive. The original estimated LF for this item was 200 LF. This is a 141% increase, which is way out of line. I decided to drive the project and see if I could identify any of the fencing that had been replaced on 8^th St. In addition I used Google to view the street view of 8^th St before the sidewalks were installed. In this review I determined that the only fence that was replaced on 8^th St is for a duplex that was located on the south side of the street across from the Abundant Life Church and as small fence on the north side of 8^th St by Cherry Ave. That duplex is shown in the two photos I posted along with a bidding schedule. The screen shot is from Google before the new sidewalks were completed. The photo is the one I took after the work was completed.

This project was funded in part by a Community Development Block Grant from the Federal Government. That being said, federal law and requirement apply. This change order was approved on May 16, 2017. I took the photo of the uncompleted work on August 18^th some 2 months after the final quantities were presented and approved by the city council. This fence just now got completed and it looks like it was done by the residents as the contractor had pulled of the job. This is so wrong. Question, it appears that the contractor may have submitted a fraudulent billing as it appears that the contractor was paid and the fence relocation was not completed. In addition the city apparently did not check the work that was completed and verified the actual quantities. What is going on here, it appears that the city engineer did not verify the quantities.

I reviewed the plans and specifications online at the city website http://www.ci.beaumont.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/29364

The first thing I noticed was the contract drawings were not stamped and signed by a Registered Civil Engineer. My Question is who is the Designer of Record. Is the city engineer or someone else? Did the city pay someone to do these terrible plans and specs which if done correctly could have been bid lump sum with the exception of the retaining walls which have to be done on a as needed basis. Please refer to the bidding schedule that I posted in the photos

I think the Mayor and the City Engineer owe us an explanation for what is going on here. There never was any 482 LF of chain link fence replacement for the 8^th St project. Looks like the Feds need to look at this and see why this grant was not managed properly.