At
UN, Bed Bug Infestation Confirmed, Spread to General Assembly
by Documents Possible, Bug Experts Say
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, September 16 -- Bed bugs infested the United Nations'
so-called "swing space" on 46th Street, where all the
documents for the General Assembly are prepared, Inner City Press
exclusively
reported on September 11. Now on September 16, all UN
workers in the UN's Albano Building on 46th Street have been informed
by e-mail that
"As
you might be aware of the recent case of bed bugs infestation on the
9th floor and the fumigation that took place over the weekend. PES
has made an arrangement with the exterminator to come in today
starting at 6:30pm with a dog to go through the entire building and
make sure that there are no other cases. Please inform your staff who
will be here after 6:30pm. I will follow up with PES and ask for a
report of what if anything they found."
This
confirms, in
writing, that the UN has suffered "bed bug infestation."
Since there are no, or at least few, beds in the UN, it is understood
that the bed bugs were introduced by the moving company which the UN
contracted to move office equipment and belongings from the
Secretariat building to the swing space, between 1st and 2nd Avenue,
so that the Secretariat was be gut rehabilitated under the UN's Capital
Master Plan.
The difficulty,
bug experts tell Inner City Press, is that full extermination of bed
bugs is difficult and expensive to accomplish and ascertain.
UN's Ban and map of Capital Master Plan, bed
bug infestation not shown
It is
not unforeseeable that bed bugs will be carried back from the swing
space into the Headquarters building, particularly given the volume
of documents that will be processed in the Albano Building for use at
next week's meetings in the General Assembly hall and basement
conference room.
So
while
Venezuela's Hugo Chavez famously said at the General Assembly podium,
giving a speech after George W. Bush, that the place smelled like
sulfur, it may have a different smell next week. Watch -- and smell?
-- this site.
* * *
At
UN, Bed Bugs But No Medical Service in the Swing Space, Skanska's
Closed Bid Openings
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, September 11 -- With the UN's human resources office moving
out of the Headquarters and to Madison Avenue, stories flow in to
Inner City Press about a total lack of security on Madison, about a
staff member stuck for an hour in an elevator in the Albano Building
swing space on 46th Street, and in a new low, bed bugs in the swing
space.
They were introduced by the moving trucks used to relocate
office equipment there, and now fumigation has been called for. The
UN is bugged, as one wag put it, in at least two ways.
The
question of the
week is who handles emergencies at the UN and its swing space? On September
10, Inner
City Press asked
Question:
On the Medical Service, it’s been reported that now, whereas
people in the past, if people were injured in the building they’d
call the Medical Service. Now everyone is being told that they
should only call 911 if they’re injured either in this building or
in the swing spaces. I wanted to know if you could confirm that and
also the Fire Department has apparently said that they haven’t been
informed of any change in procedures, such that they can with
ambulances and other things access both this building and the swing
spaces. What is the status of that?
Deputy
Spokesperson: The change in procedure, to call 911 first in an
emergency, is only a change for the UN Secretariat building. The
procedure to call 911 first has always been the case for UN
workplaces other than the Secretariat building.
The
reason for the current change is the ongoing move of staff out of the
Secretariat, including the imminent move of UN medical services to a
Capital Master Plan renovation swing space location where they’re
no longer co-located with the majority of UN staff. So that is the
reason for that. It is obvious that an expectation for medical staff
to respond on foot to emergencies scattered across the various swing
space buildings is untenable, and would only be a waste of precious
time. The reason for the updated procedure was included recently in
an internal staff announcement. Further, any emergency procedure
should be valid for all times and circumstances. The UN Fire and
Safety Unit is manned 24 hours a day, and after calling 911, it is
the appropriate party to know of an emergency; they are responsible
to ensure site access for 911 responders. If it is appropriate for
the location and circumstances of the incident, the Fire and Safety
Unit will also activate a medical services response, for which we’re
equipped and ready. And so, that is the reason given by the Medical
Service on that.
Question:
On the same question, given the shrinking of the Medical division’s
functions, does the Secretariat anticipate the budget continuing to
be as reported, $38 million over every two years, or is the budget
going to shrink if they’re no longer responsible for medical
emergencies in the Secretariat building?
Deputy
Spokesperson: Budget issues, as you know, are up to the Member
States, so I can’t answer on that.
On
the budget, the
Secretary General is responsible for making the budget proposals. And
on the evening of September 10, an ambulance was belatedly called for
a person on the ground just inside the UN's fence on First Avenue
between 42nd and 43rd Street.
UN is emptied out en route to swing space, bed bugs
not shown
A question posed on September 10 to the
UN's Associate Spokesperson about the incident was not given any
response, by close of business on September 11, when the S-G did not
even issue a statement about 9/11/01, while his Secretariat is
implicitly accused
by his former Under Secretary General Robert
Fowler of harboring Al Qaeda sympathizers, click here
for that.
And
to go full circle about Skanska, while it's now said that they open
bids for sub-contracts on a delegated basis from the UN, Skanska
claims that its bid openings are closed to the press and public. But
watch out for the bugs...
* * *
At
UN, Opaque Moves, Of Skeletons in Closet, Balkan Demands, Cafeteria
Conflict
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS, September 4 -- As the UN empties out, some moves make sense
and others, not so much. The UN Treaty section moved from the
Secretariat building, slated for gut rehabilitation, over to Madison
Avenue, complete with its safes full of treaties. But then UN
Procurement, based not in the Secretariat but already across First
Avenue on 45th Street, also moved to Madison. Already opaque,
distance may lead to even less accountability.
Capital
Master Plan
chief Michael Adlerstein, returned from his vacation, has yet to
address these issues. While he had told Inner City Press it could
attend a future Town Hall meeting, he personally reversed the policy
and ordered the Press out. The questions are not limited to
relocation, or the so-called "whistleblower
free zone"
Adlerstein and his Department of Management boss are building for
the
press over the library. They include follow up on litigation pending
against a previous Adlerstein job in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
Adlerstein,
in his role as a US Park Service administrator, is alleged to have
improperly awarded a lease of Fort Hancock to real estate developer
James Wassel. After ten years of nonperformance, the Park
Service
has finally canceled the 60 year lease. In the run-up, Philip G. Crifasi
Jr. charged that "I am stating that Mr. Wassel, in
coordination with the chairman of the selection committee, Michael
Adlerstein, changed the outcome of the selection committee." Investigators
stated that
"When
interviewed, Adlerstein advised that although there was specific
evaluation criteria listed in the RFP, the RFP also stated that NPS
would be selecting the "best proposal." Adlerstein advised
that the questions listed under the evaluation criteria were not the
minimum requirements of the RFP. Adlerstein described that the
criteria within RFP was "desired" by NPS but was not
"required." Adlerstein acknowledged that the wording within
the RFP was "gray" with respect to the questions listed
under the evaluation criteria. According to Adlerstein, NPS selected
the developers who were the best of the respondents to the RFP, not
necessarily the perfect response. Adlerstein stated that WRG was
chosen as the best, not because they were perfect, but because they
were better than the others. According to Adlerstein, NPS was not
looking for perfection."
Now
at the UN
Capital Master Plan, Adlerstein is apparently neither looking for nor
delivering transparency.
Boxed up and ready to move out of UN, transparency
not shown
Meanwhile a vicious circle is occurring in
the UN cafeteria. With fewer people in the building, there are fewer
customers. This leads Aramark, beyond the layoffs already reported
on, to earlier and earlier in the day put away the salad dressing,
and now the by-the-ounce entrees. By 7 p.m. on September 3, all that
was offered was the UN's Ramadan meal, for a total of nine dollars.
Many staff threw up their hands.
Fancy
fighting footnote: At the UN things are very genteel and classy, the
revolving door is velvet, until the gloves come off. On the night of
September 2 there was a reception for a long time journalist going
over to the dark side as some put it, to work for the Bosnian
mission. There was Mumm champagne and cheese cubes and crackers. The
Deputy Permanent Representative of a Balkan country spoke, praising her
new
hire. And then around seven she left.
What
happened next
is relayed to Inner City Press by the security personnel involved.
The DPR as they call her went through the General Assembly or
Visitors' Entrance to try to exit at the 46th Street gate. But it was
closed, locked up at seven on the dot. She returned to the South
Lobby, four blocks south, and she was steamed. She demanded to know
why the north gate had been locked. The timing was explained to her.
Shifts
changed, and she demanded to speak to the supervisor. He is in
the back, she was told, past the UNFCU and Chase ATM machines. No,
she demanded, have him come out here. Passersby gawked. She demanded
to know who made it illegal to smoke. And then in a puff of smoke she
was gone. "Write about it," it was suggested.
* * *
At UN, of
Brass Knuckles and Fire Hazards, Shared
Printers and Costly Two Month Digs
By
Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, August 31 -- An
employee of the UN's
general contractor Skanska was stopped entering the UN with a pair of
brass knuckles with spikes on them, multiple sources have confirmed
to Inner City Press. The UN Capital Master Plan, which previously
tried to downplay safety incidents in which a person was hit in the
head with a cement bar, and where a Siamese connection to provide
water to the Fire Department was blocked, has yet to speak on this
brass knuckles incident.
Meanwhile, a recent
workshop presentation by
the UN Development Program's Jan
Vandemoortele in basement
Conference Room A was so over-attended that fire code occupancy was
wildly exceeded. The UN's reaction was simply to bar any more people
from entering. Is that what the law requires? Or is the UN claiming
that, as international territory, it is not subject to the fire code
notices posted on its walls?
The overall trend without
question is that the
UN Headquarters building is emptying out. But in some cases people
are moving in, a result of lack of planning. On the 13th floor, for
example, vacated space is being filled by the Department of
Peacekeeping Operations, sources say, and money is being spent and
wasted on renovating offices for them which will only be used for a
few months.
On the 17th floor, a team from
ERP -- Enterprise
Resource Planning -- has set up shop, with a single printer, sources
say. People have to wait to exchange a USB plug to print documents.
CMP / Skanska-ites breaking, the brass knucklehead
not shown
Over in the Albano Building
swing space, a form of
crackdown has begun. Since one has to have a differently coded ID
card to go enter each floor, collaboration has been become nearly
impossible, people say. They tape the doors open so they don't lock,
but then face a crackdown, including on small refrigerators they
brought to save time and money on lunch. Many such fridges, then,
have been left abandoned on the vacated floors of the Secretariat
building. Can you say freon, and lack of recycling planning?
It's reached a point, some say,
where some say that CMP, rather
than Capital Master Plan, stands for Cannot Manage Planning. Watch
this site.
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