Audit Subcommittee Offers Recommendations, Not Blame

The City Council Audit Subcommittee tasked with examining the handling of the Piedmont Hills utility undergrounding project .

In comments submitted in response to the draft, critics have demanded the subcommittee declare who is responsible for Piedmont being saddled with the bill for more than $2 million in overruns for what was supposed to be an entirely privately funded project. But the report does not point fingers.

Subcommittee member and retired judge Ken Kawaichi explains in an outline of recommendations accompanying the draft that the assignment of blame continues to be hampered by ongoing litigation against the engineering firms involved with the project through which the city hopes to recoup its losses. But anyway, he wrote, that's beside the point.

The primary goal of the subcommittee, according to Kawaichi, is instead to come up with a set of recommendations for how the city can prevent future debacles. The subcommittee first presented its over large construction projects in January.

With Kawaichi's new outline, the subcommittee and its critics do appear to be on the same page on several points:

• that the city should come up with a plan for determining legal responsibility for the bids, plans, specifications, and costs for the Piedmont Hills undergrounding project that led to overruns;
• that public documents related to the litigation should be made accessible to Piedmont residents;
• and that more independent members of the community should be added to the subcommitee.

The subcommittee is not slated to take action on its report Tuesday, but will set the date for another meeting to vote on sending its findings and recommendations thus far to City Council. Subcommittee member Mayor Dean Barbieri further study of what happened in the Piedmont Hills utility district may well be needed once litigation is resolved.