Svoboda Company Fails to Fulfill Contract With City

In 2007, it was widely reported that Ken Svoboda's company, Ray's Lawn & Home Care, failed to fulfill its contract with the city of Lincoln to landscape and maintain some of the city's medians.

Svoboda's company received multiple written notices from the city threatening to terminate the contracts unless it took care of serious problems in the areas it was contracted to landscape. Eventually, it seems, Ken ceased all pretense of trying to do the job:

According to minutes of the meeting, "Jerry Ziems feels that he has done everything he can to get Ray’s Lawn and Home Care to complete this project and it has come to the point where Ken Svoboda from Ray’s Lawn and Home Care is no longer returning his phone calls. He believes there are only two options left: Public works can take legal action against Ray’s Lawn and Home Care or they can take the remaining money from the contract and hire someone else to complete the job."

Ken's excuse for the whole matter? "When I’m not there, things don’t get finished."

In the end, he agreed to end the city contract, pay nearly $41,000 in damages and forgo more than $25,000 he would have been paid by the city had he completed the work to the city’s satisfaction.

Everybody else understands that you have to do your job. Why doesn't Ken Svoboda?

Read the article at the Lincoln Journal Star

Read more details and view photographs of the medians in question at the Nebraska Democratic Party