Public Corruption (Dirty Water Case) - Gary Czajkowski

After two years of the story breaking, on August 22, 2013, Gary Czajkowski, owner of Chaz Equipment, was convicted on more than a dozen charges that he unlawfully supplied public employees with gifts in exchange for public work.

Gary Czajkowski was convicted of 14 felonies that involved unlawful compensation and a third degree felony of conspiracy. The PBPost originally reported that his company got at least $73 million over a decade in public water and sewer business. What it didn't tell you was, some of those millions involved Lake Worth. Chaz Equipment was around a lot back in those days as they were a sub-contractor of Mock Roos. It also didn't tell you that it involved a Lake Worth employee, Danny Derringer, who was rumored to have been on the take. Derringer was allowed to retire here after 20 years rather than be fired.

Mr. Czajkowski appealed his conviction taking it to the Florida Supreme court. On Thursday, the court ruled that it would not consider his case. He, after all of these years, will finally be off to prison for public corruption. Sometimes justice is slow.

Read about the Dirty Water case

Owner of Chaz Equipment going to prison

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Chaz Equipment worked as a sub-contractor in Lake Worth, working closely with Mock Roos, an engineering firm that has been doing business with Lake Worth for multiple decades. Chaz had a manhole contract with Delray Beach. Other cities could use that same contract's pricing for their own manhole work, a practice known as piggybacking, without putting the contract out to bid.

In part to keep the piggyback contracts coming, according to the charges, Chaz showered officials with a steady stream of gifts and entertainment.

Gary Czajkow­ski, owner of Chaz Equipment, was convicted in 2013 and out on a $15,000 bond.  Now he's going to prison.

One of the articles I wrote on this in 2011

Chaz Equipment back in the News

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Gary Czajkowski was convicted of 14 felonies that involved unlawful compensation and a third degree felony of conspiracy. He is back in the news today asking for a new trial.  The PBPost originally reported that his company got at least $73 million over a decade in public water and sewer business. What it didn't tell you was, some of those millions were from Lake Worth taxpayers. Click here.

Chaz Equipment worked as a sub-contractor in Lake Worth, working closely with Mock Roos. Chaz had a manhole contract with Delray Beach. Other cities could use that same contract's pricing for their own manhole work, a practice known as piggybacking, without putting the contract out to bid. In part to keep the piggyback contracts coming, according to the charges, Chaz showered officials with a steady stream of gifts and entertainment.

There was one contract back in 2004 through Marine Engineering as the Contractor and Mock Roos, the engineers, for manhole rehab on 6th Avenue South for $435,099. By the time the last change order came through, the contract was up to $551,506.  West Palm Beach paid Chaz Equipment $30 million between 2004 and 2010. I have no idea what the City of Lake Worth has paid to them (there would be an extensive research charge)  through the years but the above was during the same period where millions were spent at the Utility and millions seemed to vanish overnight. "Piggybacking" contracts were the norm of the day. Have you noticed there is no mention of "piggybacking" lately.

Chaz Equipment and Operation "Dirty Water"

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Back on April 3, 2011, I wrote a blog on Chaz Equipment and the pay to play corruption that also involved a former Lake Worth city employee. Click here.

Today,  construction company owner Gary Czajkowski was convicted on more than a dozen charges that he unlawfully supplied public employees with gifts in exchange for public work.  Read about it...

Pay to Play - It happens all of the time

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Everyone knows that pay to play happens on a regular basis. When we think of pay to play, what immediately comes to mind is our political system: when money or gifts are exchanged directly for political favors, such as generous campaign donations. This has happened in Lake Worth. Often times, however, it involves paid government employees and not just elected officials.

In order to be ensured of contracts, companies not just bid on the RFP's but wine and dine and spend money on those directly involved in making decisions. If that "corrupt" company knows the bids and is in collusion with a "corrupt" employee, it is easy to direct the final outcome as awards are given usually to the low bidder. The secret is not to get caught.

In today's society, everyone wants to make money, not only the honest way but sometimes by any means possible.  It is a cut-throat society and a vast majority of us find it more and more difficult to stay afloat. When temptation is there, some get hooked and throw ethics aside.  Something as innocent as a Christmas gift from a vendor can snow ball to garner influence down the road. 

Chaz Equipment Company was indicted in the biggest local public corruption sweep in at least 10 years, prosecutors say. Chaz involved itself and supplied employees in nine local governments with hunting trips, NASCAR excursions, pricey jewelry and gift cards. It was proved that gifts paralleled  the contracts. It was suggested that Chaz made $73 million over the last decade by playing the game to get contract awards.

Gary Czajkowski, President of Chaz, was just acquitted in one charge of giving a "loan" of $25,000 to the construction manager of the Town of Palm Beach for street work. Sometimes it is difficult to prove "intent." Other corruption charges are pending.

In spite of the ethics training all employees must take here in Lake Worth (all employees are now in compliance and have taken the Palm County ethics training) with full knowledge of Lake Worth policy discouraging accepting gifts of over $25, temptation is a reality. According to the Palm Beach Ethics Czar, you can't give a gift of over $100 if you are a lobbyist or a vendor or prospective vendor of the city.

This practice of gift giving appeared to be standard operation procedure for Chaz. And if that is proven to be the case, who is to say that other cities or even all cities have not been affected by this practice by many companies, not just Chaz. Chaz has done business in our city as well.

Lake Worth Beach Redevelopment

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The Lake Worth Beach redevelopment is now estimated at $13,505,329. This originally was to be an $11 million dollar project: $6 million for the building and $5 million for the beach redevelopment. Now that we have so many people involved--Kimley Horn, Living Design, Michael Singer, and Morganti, it is no wonder that the price is heading towards the roof.

Whoever designed this out based on the $5 million dollar bond money for the redevelopment portion of this project, failed to include the infrastructure: Water main at $400,000, Sanitary Sewer at $500,000, lighting at $800,000, Stormwater, underground electric, for a total cost for infrastructure of $1,855.384. And we can't forget the turtle lighting that everyone missed from the beginning. It was sort of an oops moment for turtles when the beach park moved away from public recreation and open space to a more commercial enterprise with Johnny Longboats closing at 1am with city staff giving everyone the excuse that they just had to stay open in order to meet the price per square foot that John G's has always said they would pay. Now staff tells us, "Well, we just don't get that many turtles on our beach." One is all we need.

We paid REG $460,000 to design the casino and Kimley Horn $437,000 to design the beach. That's almost a million bucks before we even got started. There were amendments to Kimley-Horn's agreement that brought the design up to $501,400. We then needed them to design a sanitary sewer system. Morganti was then awarded a contract as construction manager and they along with Kimley-Horn will bring a line item bid back on all elements of the design in January 2012.

We over-designed the redevelopment of the beach--windmills and silly stuff. We forgot all of the costs of infrastructure. How did this happen? Our wish list was too great. We need to cut it down to reality. Through the years, project after project, those who want to take advantage seem to be attracted to Lake Worth. This is an example as to how they do it. Although not involved in the beach, Chaz Equipment Company has done work for Lake Worth but alleged corruption and graft is not limited to one lone company.

Someone, from the early stages on, dropped the ball on this project. Everything should have been included in the $11 million. I blame it on all those people involved in the design. There is NO way that the city staff ever said, "Oh, don't worry about the rest of it, we will take the money from the CIP."

It's now time for this new Visionary to stay within our Budget. I'm with the Vice Mayor on this one. Let's see now what they can do about it. I don't want to hear that, "Well, we have the money allotted in the capital improvement budget, not to worry." That is still taxpayer money. Eleven million dollars is more than enough to spend. That's all we ever said that we would spend.

As Scott Maxwell eliminated the assistant city manager from consideration to be elevated as interim city manager because of the importance of this project, perhaps he will change his mind on his number one priority. This project should be number one. This is the one that will drive tourism and a lot of money to Lake Worth.

Lake Worth High graduate back in the news

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Palm Beach County has earned its title of Corruption County of the Country

In the PB Post, another article appears regarding the corruption trial of Dirty Water a name given to the pay to play charges involving Chaz Equipment that reaped millions in government contracts. This involved certain municipal employees one of whom was a former employee of Lake Worth Utilities, Danny Derringer, then working for West Palm Beach.

The City of Lake Worth has done $2.92 million dollars worth of business with Chaz.

Danny, also a graduate of Lake Worth High School, pleaded guilty last week to second degree felony.

Palm Beach has earned its title, Corruption Capital of the Country

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On or about March 18, the news of Pay-To-Play was exposed by the Post. In that article it briefly mentioned Danny Derringer, a former Lake Worth city employee. Danny Derringer was a former Lake Worth employee rumored to have been on the take. The Lake Worth Herald recently ran a story on the corruption. People who know Derringer say that he was allowed to retire here rather than be fired. As we know he went on to a few more jobs until this latest pay-to-play scandal broke. Now he faces 60 years.

Today, the pay-to-play is front page news, a Watchdog Exclusive by the Palm Beach Post. This is an excellent article written by Pat Beall, Joel Engelhardt and Adam Playford and the kind of investigative reporting that is superior. When the Post sets its teeth into a story, no one can do it better.

One person who worked with Derringer says, "He was in charge of water distribution and reported to Mike Thew. He was a legend in his own mind, lots of talk and little to no action. He was let go-- they were going to fire him, but subsequently let him retire. I believe he was the head of the PEU and PMSA at the time of his “retirement.” There was some scandal involving his "retirement" but it too has been covered up.

It is time we stop the piggy-backing of contracts and the waive of bid deals. I, as well as others, have demanded this at public meetings to no avail. There are millions of dollars in waste at Lake Worth Utilities. William Coakley says that about four years ago, they had a $50,000 to $70,000 change order that we had to pay to Chaz (Mock Roos' was in charge) that in his opinion was a farce. To this day, we have not done a forensic audit. The milking as well as the cover-up of the Utility continues. Read this article by Coakley on a sidewalk deal in Lake Worth by Chaz Equipment.

Chaz Equipment has made $2.92 million (reported by the Post) from the City of Lake Worth. I have to wonder about this amount because on February 20, 2007, the Commission approved a $1,498,860 contract to Chaz Equipment for concentrate discharge pipeline for the Reverse Osmosis plant. I don't know what happened to that Contract but we do know that the idea of discharging effluent into the Atlantic Ocean was unacceptable to the City and it delayed our RO objective.

At the last meeting of the Finance Advisory Board, Jessica Plotkin brought up the fact that we needed a forensic audit of the Utility. This was dissed with the reason being that we just can't have all these audits going on at the same time..."Do you realize that the audit by the State is a big thing," someone asked. Well, we can have as many audits as we want in Lake Worth. There has always been an excuse for not having this audit and the stall continues.

The former employee who contacted me further stated, "That whole group on the water side was very cozy with Mock Roos way past the point of normal...many stories about things taking place but never substantiated." How much has Mock Roos made with the City? It must total several million a year for 40 years? Several years back Dave Vespo went on a brief crusade, showing a little spark of possible brilliance by questioning Mock Roos and the city's relationship but stopped his pursuit--it never went anywhere; he dropped it like a hot potato. It is impossible to fight City Hall even when you're a part of it. Compromises are made.

The Corruption Capital of the Country prevails and it is not only public officials on the take. And you wonder why your Utility bills are so high.