I recently received some documents from MassDoT in response to my request for performance evaluations and complaints about Newport Construction.

Connected to that recent piece by @StreetsblogMASS, I think they tell a fairly typical story.

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Back in October of 2017, Newport and their subcontractor, Northern Tree, surprised the residents of Beacon Street by cutting down just about every tree on the street.

A great kerfuffle ensued. Meetings were held. Demands were made.

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Shortly thereafter, we were told that Newport had received a particularly harsh "interim performance evaluation" that would serve to put them on notice that this sort of thing was unacceptable.

Here is the unsigned doc the city provided in response to a FOIA request:

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The document returned by the MassDoT is a bit different. It's substantially marked up ... including several revisions -improving- Newport's scores/.

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Note the handwritten comment by (presumably) the Newport representative. "Comments will be held until we meet. This is a total sham," and by the MassDoT person "see attached meeting minutes."

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Here are the specific complaints that led to the low scores.

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This review was trotted out by the city as a Pretty Big Deal, which put a "permanent mark" on Newport's record. Here's a piece of the update that the city provided on the 24th.

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Newport flipped the table and demanded a meeting, which was held in mid November. The city wasn't there - nor was anybody from Newport who was directly working the project. Instead, Mr. DeFelice (the owner) rolled in personally.

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DeFelice convinced the three MassDoT guys to give out bumps and nudges on the score - and to commit to higher scores if they kept his promises.

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This conversation included no representation from the city whatsoever. This was MassDoT and Newport, all warm and chummy, reassuring themselves that the project was going GREAT.

They never shared the updated scores with the city - according to my FOIA request.

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On the 21st, Mr. DeFelice wrote a letter to MassDoT summarizing their discussion - just to make sure that everybody was on the same page.

Notably, this letter and the meeting minutes were nowhere in the documents that I received under FOIA from the city.

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At the end, DeFelice calls out how Steve, the project superintendent who couldn't make the meeting with MassDoT, has done a great job.

"I have accepted his apology and look to move ahead."

I guess we're good then.

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This is remarkably similar to the "I consider this matter closed" that we found in DeFelice's letter to the city, refusing to pay the fine we assessed for improper tree removal.

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On May 3 of 2019, we see the -new- performance evaluation. Still interim, since the project remains incomplete at the time of this writing.

A remarkable turnaround indeed. The score is up to 94.5 (from 71).

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They got 10 out of 10 for Workmanship, Schedule, Field Supervision, Contract Compliance, and Equipment.

I guess that Steve must have really turned it around.

So much for a "permanent mark on the record."

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The 10/10 on schedule is particularly galling, given that as recently as Fall of 2018, we were looking at project completion in June / July of 2019.

Last I checked, the project remains incomplete.

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One might ask what it takes to get a bad evaluation and make it stick. Check out the "4/10" on safety (the scale doesn't go below four) from a different project around the same time.

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Apparently, to get a poor rating and make it stick, you need to damage MassDoT property.

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I want to return to the fact that this record is divergent from what the city has been telling us.

In October, we were told about interim performance evaluations that were revised -downwards- rather than upwards.

That doesn't seem to have actually happened.

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So there we are. I assume that we're almost to the ribbon cutting and back slapping part of the project - followed by a glowing "excellent" final performance review for Newport.

This is, in fact, our galling status quo.

20/20