As per usual, threats of lawsuits against RYPN and the moderators are being made once again.

I would remind everyone involved to please read Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. RYPN is a platform, not a publisher.

Thanks for the update, let's remember that under US law, he's innocent until being found guilty and that step has yet to be taken and the process could take some time

Bob H

Nothing in my experience bears out this allegation. We get some curated factoids by all sides involved and a decision, but never all the facts or the entire picture of absolute "truth." Still, it's the system in which we work and less flawed than many. I am a bit taken back by the extent to which, knowing nothing but what's been posted publicly, many here presume they know more than that and venture absolute opinions accordingly.

This would also be a good time to remind the person making the threats (if the person making the threats is the Defendant in the criminal matter) of some sage advice from a couple of criminal lawyers:

(Warning, the video uses harsh language, but makes a valid point)

https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o

[quote="Rick Rowlands"]As per usual, threats of lawsuits against RYPN and the moderators are being made once again.

Imagine that..smh

Obviously Mr. Rimmasch will have plenty of legal bills to pay between his bankruptcy filing and now the federal Indictment without looking to spend more funds suing folks discussing the publicly stated facts.

A lot of hot air !!!

IMHO-Ross Rowland

Some of the best advice I ever got was this: "When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, for God's sake, STOP DIGGING!" Mr. Rimmasch seems to have moved on from a mere shovel and started to use an excavator to dig that hole. It will take a small miracle to save him from being buried in that hole.

Couldn't agree more

*

As a long time government contractor, I tend to take an interest in such things, especially when I know the people involved. First, as to the contracting officer (KO), they do a heck of job, but do rely generally on a contracting officer’s representative, or what had been the technical representative (COR or COTR). The COR and the office he is part of assembles the Scope of Work (SOW), with assistance from the contracts people.

As I read this, the focus is only on the asbestos portion of the project, a tiny piece of the $800K contract value or roughly $50K or so. He also asked for progress payments which us not unusual. The asbestos work took place early on in the project and by the sounds of it was not done as called for in the SOW and as described in the proposal. No such changes can be made without KO approval. Its very black and white, cut and dry – you do work as agreed to in the contract. If a change is desired, not matter how small, you get KO approval. This little nugget of information comes from first hand experience.

It’s a lousy $50K. Shoot, I am surprised they took the time to bring such charges. If one is looking for an update on the coach itself, an FOIA request for the progress payments made to date might fill in the blanks a little better here. Focus on the coach and its status, not on JohnE.

J.R.

These are good points. It is my understanding that WRRC denied they had possession of the car for the last several years and would not let NPS officials on site to inspect it. It was only during the bankruptcy case where John E had to testify under oath that he admitted to a government lawyer that his company had the car. NPS officials subsequently went to indirect it. The way the indictment is written I imagine they had to examine the car and compare with the invoicing.

So I know nothing about car restoration, and I know little about the charges and business practices of those involved. Howerever as to the price, A good friend told me years ago if you deal with ANY government, you charge twice as much as you would charge anyone else because by the time you get done with their B.S. you won't make any money if you don't. Just my two cents for those of you that think he overcharged.
M. Nix

Yes, there is a level of BS that one must deal with when contracting with the federal government. I don’t know or recall what type of procurement this was, whether RFP, RFQ, IFB resulting in a firm fixed price, CPFF, CPIF type contract. Generally speaking, pricing provided will include the planned profit level, G&A, as well as a review of labor rates by a government reviewer. Its pretty hard to pull one over on the government customer and does take some work to do so.

What we do not know is how much work was done on the car. Was work stopped when the asbestos work was found to be not in compliance? In truth, count five almost sounds like an insider whistle blower, but I could see the KO issuing a stop work order when the issue came to light. What I don’t know is how much of the $800K has been paid by the government, but my hunch is not much.

J.R. May

The contract information is available online. www.fpds.gov. The procurement ID is INP16PC00370

Search for that if this link doesn’t work:

https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/search.do?q=Wasatch+railroad+contractors+PIID%3A%22INP16PC00370%22+PIID%3A%22INP16PC00370%22&s=FPDS.GOV&templateName=1.5.2&indexName=awardfull

It looks like NPS pulled back $21k in September. Contract is not marked as completed.