Valuetainment - May 08, 2026


＂I FIRED Them＂ - Gov. Wes Moore GOES OFF On Key Bridge Contractors Over Cost & Delays


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

201.29437

Word count

2,115

Sentence count

106


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the Baltimore Sun, I sit down with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to discuss the collapse of the Gordie Howe Bridge in Baltimore and the impact it has had on the city and the state of Maryland.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 In regards to other things with the bridge in Baltimore, in Maryland,
00:00:08.760 because I don't think people give you enough credit.
00:00:10.660 I think you've done a very good job improving that market.
00:00:14.660 You know, if anybody gives credit for lowest crime.
00:00:17.360 When I think I've been to Baltimore, I used to go to Gibson Island.
00:00:19.800 There's a place called Gibson Island, real nice place.
00:00:22.080 Beautiful.
00:00:22.540 Beautiful place.
00:00:23.360 And I'm a baseball guy.
00:00:24.340 So, look, I mean, Baltimore is a baseball city.
00:00:26.940 It sure is.
00:00:27.660 I'm a football guy.
00:00:28.780 One of my good friends, Mehran Asadi, who is a CEO of one of the biggest insurance companies in America,
00:00:33.940 number one in Index Universal Life, he lives in Baltimore.
00:00:36.880 He's been a season ticket holder, I don't know, 25 years, and he's there.
00:00:40.860 So good people come out of this place.
00:00:43.260 When the bridge happened, and we all saw the video, okay?
00:00:47.080 Everybody saw the video, what happened to it, and it got hit and all this stuff.
00:00:50.440 The debris took 38 days, right?
00:00:52.820 I think 28 or 38 days to clean up.
00:00:54.560 I don't know the exact number.
00:00:55.500 It's something eight.
00:00:56.900 It's either damage, okay, let me see the exact,
00:01:01.240 because I want to say it correctly.
00:01:03.460 It took 78 days to remove the debris, okay?
00:01:07.500 And then it's a 1.6-mile steel truss bridge.
00:01:11.180 A lot of people say, well, how did DeSantis fix the bridge?
00:01:13.580 That's three miles.
00:01:14.120 It's a very different bridge.
00:01:15.040 So people can't make that comparison.
00:01:16.660 It's apples and oranges.
00:01:17.820 I'm putting that, and I'm a DeSantis guy,
00:01:19.620 so I'm not pinning you against him.
00:01:21.140 I don't want to say that.
00:01:21.760 It's very different.
00:01:22.720 But then the numbers came out that you said you want speed.
00:01:26.160 You want to get it down quick, right?
00:01:28.200 Then the budget came out to $5.2 billion, I want to say somewhere around there, and saying it will take until 2030.
00:01:34.200 To your critics that say, Governor Moore, why can't we get this thing done faster?
00:01:38.980 What do you say to them?
00:01:40.000 So I'd say that when they said it was going to take 11 months to clear the channel, we got it cleared in 11 weeks.
00:01:45.000 When they said it was going to take years to get permitting done, we got it done in months.
00:01:49.780 When they said it was going to take literally five to seven years to get a 70% design build, we got it done in 14 months.
00:01:55.720 this is the fastest moving major project inside of the country and people forget that initial bridge
00:02:01.520 the francisco key bridge was initially built nearly a two mile long bridge that from design
00:02:07.640 permitting implementation took 12 years right we're talking about now getting this thing done
00:02:14.440 within literally less than half of the time and the bridge that we're gonna have to build is gonna
00:02:20.900 to have to be a bridge according to federal guidelines a bridge that has more safety
00:02:25.440 implementations because what happened that morning on march 26 can never happen again
00:02:32.720 this is a ship the size of three football fields that slammed into a nearly two mile long bridge
00:02:38.820 and took it down instantaneously um this is a engineering marvel what happened and you see
00:02:44.800 here where literally the the bridge is sitting on top of a ship right um we knew and the thing
00:02:51.440 that i was focused on is i want speed i want safety and i want cost savings and we've been
00:02:58.800 able to help to deliver on those things in fact just recently when i saw that the people who are
00:03:03.620 the contractors uh you know we're not we're actually you know estimating that this is going
00:03:07.940 to be more expensive than what we initially laid out i fired them and now we're going to go through
00:03:12.640 the process but the work is still you're back at it again so from the well the work is still
00:03:16.700 happening right now okay because phase one phase one is still going to happen for the next six
00:03:19.980 months the initial the initial company that we had as a contractor they're going to keep on
00:03:24.240 working through january because phase one still has time to go but they're not going to be the
00:03:27.940 ones that's going to get the job done i want a different team for phase two because of speed
00:03:31.340 you're not happy with the speed or well a i want it to run faster and it's the cost i'm very i am
00:03:38.260 a hawk when it comes to taxpayer dollars on this and when i saw that the cost continued to escalate
00:03:45.360 that's when i made the decision then i'm going to fire them and we're going to go through the
00:03:49.180 process that once phase one is complete i want phase two to begin immediately but i want phase
00:03:54.860 two to begin immediately with the with the with the company that's going to get us to the finish
00:04:00.140 line and and so while i know when people say they're like listen it still seems aggressive
00:04:04.920 that you can get something like that done.
00:04:07.280 If you look at some of the comps,
00:04:08.440 things like the Gordie Howe Bridge,
00:04:10.060 the Gordie Howe Bridge took 20 years,
00:04:12.140 similar size bridge.
00:04:12.880 You look at the Harbor Bridge in Texas,
00:04:17.140 same thing, where this thing has taken decades to get done.
00:04:20.600 And I'm talking about getting it done
00:04:21.500 in a fraction of that time.
00:04:23.440 The answer is yes, because we're focused.
00:04:25.580 And again, I'm very clear, it is speed,
00:04:28.220 it is safety, and it is cost savings.
00:04:30.540 Those are the three things that I wanna be able to focus on
00:04:33.120 to make sure we can get this bridge done.
00:04:34.400 So is it going to be above $5.2 billion?
00:04:37.560 Well, we'll have to wait to see what the next contract comes back to.
00:04:40.260 The offers they make?
00:04:40.980 Yeah.
00:04:41.420 And now, in fairness to the other contractor, the thing that they were saying was this,
00:04:47.580 was that this thing cost a couple billion dollars when it was done in 1977.
00:04:55.080 Since 1977, the cost of everything has increased.
00:04:58.980 This has to be a bridge that can take on bigger cargo and allow more cargo.
00:05:03.060 thousand cars a day i mean this is like a very important bridge this is the most this the port
00:05:07.740 of baltimore is one of the most important ports in the united states of america two-thirds of the
00:05:11.320 country get their goods from the port of baltimore it's the largest roll-on roll-off port in the
00:05:16.240 entire country it's the largest when it comes to spices and sugars etc like whether you are driving
00:05:21.480 in michigan or whether you are eating a meal in louisiana chances are those goods came from the
00:05:28.200 Port of Baltimore. And that bridge is a major artery for it. So the reason that we were so
00:05:33.040 focused on getting that channel cleared quickly, and the reason that even last year after the
00:05:37.660 tragedy, last year was the second most productive year in the history of the Port of Baltimore.
00:05:43.480 So when people talk about the speed, this is speed that is just absolutely unheard of when it comes
00:05:49.060 to dealing with this kind of crisis. The state of Maryland put on a case study in how you deal with
00:05:53.460 moments of crisis. We had six bodies that we still had to recover and make sure we're getting them
00:05:58.880 back to their families. So I'm really proud of how the state moved, but also the state knows,
00:06:04.900 I'm very clear, it is speed, safety, and call safety. Let me ask you this. Have you had a
00:06:09.440 conversation with the president about this? Absolutely. Okay. And Secretary Duffy as well,
00:06:13.920 who's actually been a very good partner. He's very good. He's a class act himself. Him and his
00:06:17.620 are phenomenal yeah uh so is it something where did the president when you speak with him offer
00:06:26.140 to help you working collaboratively together to get it done faster did that conversation take
00:06:31.840 place yeah and in fact um not only have we been working very closely with secretary duffy
00:06:35.900 on it uh yes when i made the announcement that i was firing the other contractor because because
00:06:41.200 they weren't getting what what my expectations were secretary duffy then put out uh another
00:06:46.720 note from the Department of Transportation, basically echoing what we said and saying,
00:06:50.280 I think the state of Maryland did the right thing. So this was something that that it was both for
00:06:55.120 the not just the state, but also the federal government came back and piggybacked and said
00:07:00.240 this was the right thing. In the past when this has happened, because this has probably happened,
00:07:04.540 you know, not many times, but it's happened in the past before. What role does the federal
00:07:08.820 government play to help accelerate? Because this is not just a regular place. This is a very
00:07:12.080 important bridge. It is. What role has the federal government played? So for this bridge,
00:07:15.820 the federal government and also i got to give credit to congress uh and both democrats and
00:07:20.580 republicans in congress because they voted for the 100 cost share and so the what a 100 cost share is
00:07:26.300 it's essentially bridge financing it's essentially saying listen you know we know that this is going
00:07:31.020 in litigation and when and we know then when the litigation is is is settled because even
00:07:36.840 lloyds of london has indicated this is probably going to be the most expensive maritime tragedy
00:07:40.900 in our nation's history.
00:07:42.740 But what they know is I can't wait for that to be complete.
00:07:46.620 So what the federal government is saying is that, listen,
00:07:48.440 we're going to help to support it,
00:07:49.820 but essentially we are going to do bridge financing.
00:07:52.980 Once everything is settled, that money then comes back to the Treasury.
00:07:56.800 But then the federal government on not just this project,
00:07:59.960 but the federal government, when it comes to most projects
00:08:02.660 that take place around the country, they serve as the main underwriter
00:08:05.540 because whether you're talking about roads or bridges or tunnels,
00:08:09.480 No state has the resources to be able to take care of all infrastructure in your state alone.
00:08:15.160 That support comes from Congress.
00:08:17.920 That support comes from Washington.
00:08:20.180 And so this, like other projects in the last round, came from Washington where they said,
00:08:26.780 we are going to support because we think this project is important enough to be able to serve as an underwriter.
00:08:31.280 Okay, fair enough.
00:08:32.540 And best of luck to you guys.
00:08:33.660 This story that came out, I think, today, Maryland drafts a construction company for Baltimore's key bridge.
00:08:38.640 As federal partners seeks to lower costs, Maryland will start looking for new construction companies,
00:08:42.600 working together with the government, so more power to you, working with Secretary Sean Duffy.
00:08:48.200 He seems like a stud of a guy, and best of luck to you guys.
00:08:51.420 He has been a very, very good partner.
00:08:53.240 See, that's the part about what you're doing.
00:08:54.220 He's been a good partner.
00:08:54.780 Let me tell you what.
00:08:55.540 This is the part that's important about you on how you are, that you're willing to work with anybody.
00:09:02.320 your relationship with Oklahoma governor, you're now Duffy, you know,
00:09:06.320 the conversation is giving credit to what the president's doing with the baby.
00:09:09.240 All this stuff is very important.
00:09:10.560 This is why people like you as much as they do, because, you know,
00:09:14.480 the next level of leadership is we need that.
00:09:19.680 Because today the biggest thing is, like, even California, I don't know,
00:09:22.460 I'm sure you follow on it closely because, you know, there's only 50 of you.
00:09:25.940 And I believe you're the only African-American governor we have right now.
00:09:28.760 And only the third in American history.
00:09:31.300 And the only one ever in Maryland.
00:09:33.460 Only one ever in Maryland.
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