This letter is in regard to Rockland city manager candidate Christopher Philbrick and statements he made in his resume.

I'm now retired but I worked for the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) as a civilian engineer and was involved in contract administration and quality assurance in the design and construction of infrastructure projects for the U.S. Army and Air Force.

Philbrick's resume sates that he was the "City Manager" (his actual title was Garrison Commander per the Desert Dispatch article "New Command for Fort Irwin" dated May 23, 2008) of Ft. Irwin, Calif., from 2005-2008 and claims that one of his achievements in that position was that he "Led the design, grant writing, land use planning, construction oversight and administration of a $100 million water treatment plant allowing for vital expansion of city infrastructure." This type of project would not have been managed by the Ft. Irwin Garrison. An Army infrastructure project with a $100 million price tag requires direct funding from Congress, and by law the COE is the agency responsible for the "design," "construction oversight and the administration" of such projects for the Army. Also, it does not make sense that there would be "grant writing" for a Army project when the project would have been fully funded by Congressional appropriations.

A quick internet search showed that the COE did recently complete a $100.1 million design-build water treatment plant project at Ft. Irwin. The COE awarded the contract in 2012 with construction starting in 2013 and completed in 2016, with the COE then turning over the water treatment plant to Fort Irwin. As stated in his resume, Philbrick had left Ft. Irwin in 2008 so he wasn't even there when the plant was either being designed or constructed.

I called the civilian director of public works at Ft. Irwin to find out if by chance another $100 million water treatment plant had been built in the 2005-2008 time frame. He said there was NOT another plant built during that period and that the new plant replaced the water treatment plant that was built in the 1980s. The director also said the new plant had been in the works for a "long time" so I assume that Philbrick would probably have been aware that a water treatment plant was in the works.

David Leon lives in Rockland