As usual Chris you spout before you know. The documents that are online are not the contracxt as signed. In fact, many features of the Swan Pond/Hofmann plan are yet to be decided. You know this because you were instrumental in getting the ploiticians to become involved at the last meeting, which was good. But the documents that the Village, the Commissions and the Olmsted Society have seen are not the contracted "latest and greatest". Only that contract defines what the contractor must do, what he will get poaid for doing it, etc. And even though these efforts will take place on public land in a Registered National Historic Landscape District the Village does not have a copy of it, or any of the change orders that have been or will be put forth. I have asked the Village to secure both contracts, as signed, and any/all change orders as they are issued so that those who are interested may know just what is scheduled to be done, when, and in what manner. Why shouldn't we know this? It's a public project paid for with public money and on public land.
There have been a lot of errors in this deal. The Corps and IDNR put the notice and solicitation for the Fairbanl/Armitage phase on the Village website and stated that Fairbank Dam was in Lyons, when we know full well that since the Riverside Historical District extends to the South Bank it is completely within Riverside. The Commissions that concurred in this project and those that didn't have never seen the finished plan because it is still not finished. Fourteen months ago I warned about the effects this removal will have at low water flows and was ignored, derided and worse - but at the last open meeting the Corps admitted the river may narrow at these times - typically summer months - by as much as 105 ft. along Bloomingbank. They have no plan or obligation to remedy any thing they cause above or below their work limits, which don't even extend as far as the Indian Gardens tennis courts upriver.
The Trustees, Admin, you or me - none of us have seen the finished contract that defines exactly where and how and what will be removed, how it will be done, what the haul routes will be, what trees exactly will be cut, what the material used in the path will be or exactly where it will meander, etc. None of that has ever been seen, and so no commission has ever passed on what will actually take place. You canwax poetic and have an orgasm over meetings with politicians who certainly know none of these details, but I want to see, read, understand and question the actual documents that state explicitly how our 184 year heritage of dams here in Riverside will be ended.
Chris, don't mislead the people who haven't delved into this with your pompous verbiage. As for good faith, the Corps and IDNR walked in more than a decade ago with a plan to remove or notch the dams, and while there have been endless meetings and myriad teams of engineers and experts involved and then removed, there STILL is no 100% finished plan and contract that anyone here has seen. If I hadn't bitched and moaned and written letters and called them constantly they nvr would have scheduled the dam removal from the south bank and we would have had that mess up on Fairbank Road. Nobody else came around again and again and hammered at them to do that. If anything false has been written here you are the one that wrote it.
Posted Tuesday Nov 15, 2011 08:56
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