This has got to be the most ridiculous thing to come out all week.
From Joe Arnold, we learn that investigators never interviewed the Louisville Arena whistleblower. Never interviewed him!
In a document just released to WHAS11 news, the law firm that investigated allegations made by an arena construction worker in an interview with WHAS11 discloses that it never interviewed the man who made those allegations, Charlie Molen. Nevertheless, the report suggests that Molen voiced his safety and quality control concerns “perhaps” out of personal ambition and his candidacy for union office.
“No interview was conducted with Mr. Molen,” the report states in its last paragraph, “We understand that Mortenson (the general contractor) has interviewed him, but that his comments in that interview diminish the scope of the concerns he expressed on camera rather than enlarging them.”
Call us crazy, but we think safety concerns are important regardless of personal ambition or political ego.
And we thought our minds couldn’t be blown again by the arena. You’ve gotta read the rest.
Meanwhile, alleged Louisville Mayor Jerry Abramson is somewhere sitting on his thumbs.
2 responses so far ↓
1 David Harpe // Jun 4, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I really hope Joe Arnold takes this to the next logical question: Why did the Arena Authority choose to use a LAW FIRM in the first place instead of choosing someone in the industry with experience in construction safety?
If you really want to know if safety is an issue, you’re going to have to use people who know the industry because they know what questions to ask. You also need to use a 3rd party that does not have hire/fire power over the workers.
Lawyers working for the Arena Authority have one job: Protect their client. That’s it. That’s why they’re paid. They are not vehicles for truth. Whereas construction people know what questions to ask, lawyers know what questions NOT to ask…and who NOT to interview.
The only industry-qualified people who have looked at the safety issue accusations are people who have potential liability…namely, contractors doing the construction. The Arena Authority – who are the ones who could/should investigate what the contractors are doing – instead calls their lawyers.
Why?
2 le gardien de but // Jun 4, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I am a professional engineer. Although I am not a civil engineer, all engineers at my school took at least one course in “strength of materials”. Assuming the pictures shown in CJ of the proper/improper joints were correct, I believe that vigilant inspection of each joint would have seen the deficiencies as shown in CJ…
On another but related issue, in “the old days” before computers, we added safety factors to compensate for the in accuracies of slide rule calculations. Thus instead of 20 columns for example, we would recommend 30 or 40. Today with modern computers, more accurate & hence more cost effective answers are available. However, these more technically correct answers seem to place a premium on technique. Maybe I am just another old phart…..
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