A cozy deal: MassDoT and Newport Construction

Do you remember the surprise clear-cut in 2017 that removed almost every tree on Beacon Street in Somerville?

This post is about how MassDOT, their contractor Newport Construction, and the City of Somerville have collaborated to sweep that fiasco under the rug. As of early 2020, Newport is poised to receive a near-perfect performance review before heading just over the Cambridge line to do work in Inman Square.

Here’s how that sort of thing happens.

Bad Contractor! No No!

Shortly after the clear-cut, Somerville told residents that MassDOT had taken the “serious, disciplinary step of filing an Interim Performance Evaluation,” against Newport. This was supposed to represent a “permanent mark on Newport’s record.”

I’m a curious sort, so I filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with both the city of Somerville and also with MassDOT, asking for “any performance reviews of Newport,” as well as “records of any disciplinary or corrective actions taken as a result of those complaints.”

The city’s response included the document below, which does look pretty scathing. The city’s “permanent mark” update was published on the 24th, the day after this document came out.

The second page goes into detail about other problems beyond the trees. There were issues with the electrical subcontractor, the Newport crews were not wearing safety equipment, schedules were inadequate and inaccurate, coordination with the city and residents was been lacking, and sometimes they just demolished the wrong stuff.

The Secret Review

MassDOT provided a different version of that same review document. The MassDOT version is heavily annotated and tells a very different story — four of the nine scores were adjusted upwards. There is also a written back-and-forth. The contractor left a handwritten note: “COMMENTS WILL BE HELD UNTIL WE MEET. THIS IS A TOTAL SHAM,” to which MassDOT replies at the bottom of the page.

It seems that the revised scores were never shared with the city. The clean version above was the only review in their response to my FOIA request.

The documents provided by MassDOT also included a surprisingly gentle note from MassDOT to Anthony Barrile, an alternate contact at Newport. The letter notes that Steve Barry, Newport’s Project Superintendent, has refused to sign the performance evaluation. Steve is the “TOTAL SHAM” guy above. The MassDOT person urges Newport to reconsider and to take an opportunity to meet with MassDOT.

We wouldn’t want such a negative review to stand, now would we?

The Envelope Please

About a month later, MassDOT had their meeting with Newport. Neither Steve nor Anthony from Newport attended. Instead, Richard DeFelice, the owner of Newport Construction, showed up.

Nobody from from the city was there, nor were any of the subcontractors. This was just a chummy little meeting between the state and their contractor to work out whatever confusion had led to such a nasty review

Mr DeFelice seems to have been quite persuasive. As mentioned above, the MassDOT folks agreed to raise four out of nine of the scores.

I wonder if he brought cookies or something.

Rewriting History

Immediately after the meeting, Mr DeFelice sent a letter (also provided by MassDOT as part of the “permanent record”) that includes some truly epic gaslighting. He denies or glosses over most of the claims in the original evaluation and claims that Steve, the project superintendent, has actually been doing a very good job in the face of “interruptions” from the residents and business owners.

Mr. DeFelice has spoken to his man, accepted an apology, and he looks to move ahead.

The note from the minutes of Somerville’s Public Utilities and Public Works committee meeting from October 24, 2017 tells a different story.

It’s not that Steve “missed giving proper notification.” He was instructed by MassDOT, weeks in advance, to delay the work. He failed to call off Newport’s subcontractor, Northern Tree, who showed up in force on the 4th (Wednesday). Northern proceeded to start clear cutting the street without anybody from Newport or MassDOT, or even a police detail, on site.

City staff sprang into a limited sort of action that very same Wednesday and sent an informal email to MassDOT asking which trees were to be removed. MassDOT replied “no tree removal is on the schedule.”

On Thursday, in response to increasingly frantic resident complaints that — no kidding — they are really cutting down every single tree on our street, city staff again put fingers to keyboard and issued a follow-up email. At that point MassDOT called back and said “yeah, about that, um, our guys appear to be cutting down some trees.”

When the crews from Northern Tree showed up on Friday for a third day of work (after a contentious city council meeting where our legislators demanded to know what the hell was going on), the city finally insisted on a halt. Nobody could get hold of Steve the Superintendent, so the MassDOT people had to intervene and stop the work that they didn’t even know was happening and allowed to proceed for two days.

I can see why they didn’t invite the city to the follow up meeting.

MassDOT provided a fig leaf to the city to placate angry residents, then rolled much of it back in a private meeting with the owner of the company. That same owner then got to write the narrative for the notional “permanent record.”

A Remarkable Improvement

Mr DeFelice’s letter closes with the fact that he “looks forward to receiving a new evaluation in the Spring.”

How they did that next evaluation go? Pretty well. Pretty well indeed. Newport was rated a 94.5, with perfect scores in workmanship, schedule, field supervision (go Steve!), compliance, and equipment.

The 10 out of 10 on schedule is particularly galling, given that the schedule has slipped a full year with each of these evaluations.

I understand that much of the 2017 delay was due to a previously unknown gas main in the street, and that delays in 2018 had to do with delays in relocating utility poles. In 2019, Newport finally paved and painted around a final pole that Eversource still hadn’t moved after nearly four years — leading to, well, see for yourself. That’s a utility pole in the middle of a bike lane.

Ten out of Ten for Schedule

The schedule has been erratic enough that I made a little spreadsheet last summer to track what we were being told, and when. It turns out that we got exactly the same update for six weeks in a row over the summer.

The update below indicates that the project will continue into 2020. Note that one of the remaining outstanding items is that that “high-friction surface” for the cycle track that was promised as far back as July.

Ten out of ten on schedule.

So what’s my point?

First off, the fiasco with the trees was not an aberration in an otherwise well-run project. This thing has been a mess for years — the clear cut was just finally over-the-top enough to get everybody yelling at the same time. The fact that tree crews were allowed to cut for two days while city staff tried to find anyone who knew what was going on does not speak to a well coordinated project.

Trees (and stumps) are easy to count. It’s hard for people not directly involved in construction to evaluate subtle things like pavement grading or the overall quality of workmanship. The “punch list” for the end of the project appears to include a variety of unforced errors by the contractor. Hopefully we found most of these, but I doubt it. We clearly inspected only once the street was closed up, which means that any subsurface omissions will be discovered as things fail, once Newport has fled the scene.

My second point is that MassDOT seems content to take their contractor’s word over the city’s as to whether or not there was a problem. There is self interest at work there, since it was MassDOT’s failure to control their contractor that led to the whole sorry situation.

As I said, it’s cozy.

And a Bit for the Mayor

Finally, I’m disappointed that my city is unwilling or unable to take a stronger stand here. Back in January, after substantial prodding from the City Council, Mayor Curtatone’s administration sent a letter to Newport demanding payment for the trees that were improperly removed.

Mr DeFelice wrote back at the end of March that he has “no intention of paying” and that he “considers the matter closed.”

Like MassDOT, the Mayor seems content to let Mr DeFelice have the final word on things.

Some folks have wondered if this is some of that famous Somerville graft. The records show only one donation from Mr DeFelice to a Curtatone campaign. He gave the individual maximum of $1,000 back when the project was getting started. If that was a payoff, it seems like a bargain in exchange for five years of free reign on a nearly $10M project.

Maybe we’re really just that cheap.