Great Cartoon!

Neal Obermeyer has a hilarious cartoon on the opinion page of the Journal Star.

It's worse than I thought!

The Nebraska Democratic Party held a press conference today to let the world know about what kind of successful businessman Ken Svoboda really has been.

They revealed that there were multiple instances of Ken fulfilling his contacts and that he would often just not return the phone calls. Other times, he billed the city more than once for the same job.

According to the documentation provided, on at least five separate occasions, city staff gave Ken Svoboda ten days notice to comply with the terms of the contract or the contract would be terminated. In one letter, dated June 15, 2004, Mark Canney from the Parks and Recreation Department wrote Mr. Svoboda to inform him that the contracts were considered cancelled as of that date.

The Party’s investigation also found that city staff were required to go to great lengths to receive a response from Ken Svoboda following repeated phone calls concerning complaints and issues. On numerous occasions, Svoboda never returned their calls.

Developing...

Median troubles are nothing new for Svoboda

The Lincoln Journal Star has an extensive article today about how Ken Svoboda has had frequent problems with fulfilling his landscaping contracts with the city of Lincoln.

Letters between Svoboda and various city officials show that the city was displeased with his company’s performance on a number of contracts to install and maintain landscaping on certain city medians. Ray’s received written notices threatening to terminate the contracts unless it corrected problems with its work on medians on North 27th Street, West Highlands Boulevard, South 70th Street and 84th Street.

Eventually, it seems, Ken ceased all pretense of trying to do the job:

According to minutes of the meeting, “Jerry Ziems feels that he has done everything he can to get Ray’s Lawn and Home Care to complete this project and it has come to the point where Ken Svoboda from Ray’s Lawn and Home Care is no longer returning his phone calls. He believes there are only two options left: Public works can take legal action against Ray’s Lawn and Home Care or they can take the remaining money from the contract and hire someone else to complete the job.”

In the end, the City gave Ken one more chance and he reportedly spent the entire week doing the work himself.

You have to wonder if anybody other than a sitting city councilman would have received as many second chances.

Blame it on the poppy mallow

Apparently Ken Svoboda doesn't have a very green thumb.

Despite spending his entire life working in lawn care, Ken can't get a tiny little flower to grow. According to wikipedia, the poppy mallow "prefers a hot and dry situation."

Svoboda said the only reason he hasn’t completed the contract is the poppy mallow the city specified has been difficult to get established, even though it’s supposed to thrive in hot, sunny locations.

Excuses. Excuses. I'm sick of hearing excuses.

Even though he hasn't kept up his end of the deal, city hall has seen fit to extend the contract. You have to wonder if anybody other than a sitting city councilman would have been bent over backwards for like this. The one redeeming thing the city did is to make Ken put up some of his own money

Ray’s must provide the city with a $75,000 letter of credit, on which the city can draw if Ray’s defaults on the contract. The credit line would replace the performance bond, which contractors provide as a form of insurance that they will complete jobs. Performance bonds can be difficult to collect, however.

It's cut little flower and it's kicking Ken's butt. Is he really as tough as he'd lead us to believe?