Report: Mismanagement Cost Mendham $5 million

In a highly anticipated presentation to the mayor and township committee, the Lessons Learned subcommittee, comprised of various township residents with architectural, financial and legal backgrounds, determined that the majority of the inflated costs that plagued the Emergency Services building construction were avoidable.

Oh, and that they totaled $5 million dollars.

Unlike the original $2.3 million dollar estimate that was approved initially or even the widely-reported $3.7 million that the project was increased to without informing the public, this new final figure includes both the hard and soft costs of construction.

While the hard costs factored in include all materials used in the construction, soft costs can include architects fees, furniture, fixtures and equipment and legal costs.

According to Gene Messina, an architect who served as chair of the committee, township leadership was "fragmented and haphazard" and this led to a project that was "hobbled by confusion" from the start. 

"A lot of the building was built on trial and error and that is the most expensive way to run a project," Messina said. "This is project management 101, quite frankly. This was not a really complicated project, but it became complicated as time went on."

Critical missteps throughout plagued the project, which was completed in the latter half of 2010, he said.

"One of the decisions made was to break the jobs up into a group of smaller subcontracts and then hire a construction manager to save money," Messina said. "The person that was hired was right out of college and was unprepared for handling the job.

Beyond inexperienced subcontractors and a finanically unsound contractor team, the committee said, the documentation and record keeping in the process was "atrocious."

"There are documents missing in almost every area," Messina said. "And contracts we don't even know if they were filed."

The lack of experience and protocol is what led to a series of mistakes around the puring of the concrete slab floor, Messina said.

"The stone slab floor ended up being the millstone around this project," Messina said.

Having been poured incorrectly, the slab floor needed to be taken up, an arduous task that was also done incorrectly, tearing up not only the concrete, but the substrate and the power conduits beneath, Messina said. 

Besides what it called lack of leadership, the loss of documents, and sloppy construction work with no oversight, the committee said having an end user sitting on the township committee guiding the process was deterimental, as was the lack of transparency on the spending.

Going forward Messina suggested that early on a capital project team be formed and this team, in effect, becomes the client and makes the decision. This team would be led by the township administrator should be a leader.

"All communication needs to go through the project team," Messina said. "End users are vital in the planning stage but they should be limited to an advising role only."

Former mayor and current township committee member Frank Cioppettini, who was critical of the construction process and pushed for the formation of the committee to issue thanked the subcommittee for the road map.

"We were in over our heads and we knew it and we tried to get this building done to get the community served," Cioppettini said. "And so the fireman and the first aid would have a home. And I think in the future if we do build, and we I think we will in the future, we have a way to do it. Thank you very much for a very diligent job."

As for the much heralded delays that wore on the project, Cioppettini offered his apology.

"I take responsibility for my part in holding things up. I wanted the residents to get what they paid for," Cioppettini said.

Mayor Sam Tolley tabled the discussion after the presentaton and said there would be an opportunity for the public to ask questions of the Lessons Learned committee at a later date when residents have had time to read the presentation.