If at First You Don't Succed, Donate a Lot of Cash

Patriot Engineering is the firm at the center of the Indianapolis Central Library controversy. For those unfamiliar the project, it is months behind schedule because the concrete support pillars were found to be defective severely undermining the foundation of the library expansion. It was Patriot's job to inspect the pillars for any defects and insure that they were built properly.

So it should come as a great surprise then that Patriot has been awarded the contract to inspect the same type of work at the new Colt's stadium. Apparently not everybody is thrilled about this:

Former Lt. Gov. John Mutz, who serves on the authority, expressed his concerns at the board's meeting Tuesday. "Something went wrong on the library," he said. "I'm uncomfortable based on that experience. This project has to be completed on time."

But Mitch's man, John Klipsch, felt differently:

"He said the state didn't want to exclude the Indianapolis company because of suspected problems on another project"

That is exactly why you exclude a company; poor work is always the first reason to exclude a company. So why then does Patriot get another chance? While I'm sure that there are backroom connections at play here, I doubt the $7800 worth of contributions that Patriot and its owner Richard Kraft made to Mitch was overlooked.