CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) In an interview earlier this week with WSAU news, Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg said she has confidence in Community Infrastructure Partners.
She doesn’t quite address the three issues that give most of us an uneasy feeling.
First, we are told this is a free lunch. And most of us know there is no such thing. We are told that Community Infrastructre Partners will leverage federal dollars that are available now, and that lead pipe will be replaced, free of cost, for the owners of older homes. They’ll even cover and landscaping damage that’s done during the work. Experience shows when a deal is too good to be true, it probably is.
Second, we’ve learned that many of the people who make up the management team at Community Infrastructure Partners were in business together earlier. Their prior company, Corvias, was in the business of renovating college dormitories and military housing. Military families living in renovated housing at Fort Liberty filed one of several lawsuits, claiming their housing was substandard. Students at the University of Augusta, Georgia complained that mold wasn’t removed from their renovated dormitory. So why are we to believe that the newly-named company, will suddenly do a good job with the plumbing in our homes?
Third, how many of the companies and top managers are donors to the democrat party and Democratic candidates? That would make the “free” lead pipe removal make sense. It’s free to homeowners, but is it actually a way to make fat-cat donors fatter? They’ll give more as these lead pipe removal contracts come to fruition. I wonder if it was the Biden White House that put Mayor Katie Rosenberg in touch with Community Infrastructure Partners as the “preferred partner” to do the work. After all, the city never issued a request for proposals for the lead pipe project. The contract was not put out for competitive bids. The head of CIP, Shawn Kerachsky, went in front of the Wausau City Council and seemed aghast that anyone would question why regular procedures weren’t followed.
So this leads to more questions for Wausau’s Mayor Rosenberg. Why, Mayor Katie, did Community Infrastructure Partners not have to full out all of the disclosure forms that companies normally have to do before they do business with the city? And can you assure us that your re-election campaign accept donations from companies, sub-contractors, and individuals involved in lead pipe removal?
Let’s see if anyone at city hall can hit the pause button on all of this. Or, like a mighty locomotive going down a hill, has the lead pipe train already left the station?
The City Council approved a one-year agreement with CIP last night. The vote was 7 to 4.
Chris Conley
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