elpasospeak

Refusethejuice published an article that dealt in part with the contract that we wrote about in The price is, unless it’s more.

City council was to consider a construction contract for San Jacinto Plaza in it’s January 2, 2014 meeting.  The city had received three bids, two of which were over $7 million each and one that came in at $4.5 million.  The apparent winning bidder is a company that does a lot of work for the city, much of it under no-bid buy-boards that require as much as 4% of our money to be paid to out of town school districts.

We need to remember that tearing down city hall and remodeling buildings in a hurry  made concepts like bidding and responsible spending things that would get in the way of the steam roller.

Our article approached the issue from the perspective of the large price difference, the small number of bidders (have local contractors decided that bidding on city business is a waste of time because of favoritism and other things?) and the fact that the proposed contract was not definitive in specifying what was to built and thus the low bidder might be able to get paid more than what was bid.

Refusethejuice wrote about the bid from a different perspective:

“The one bid with Basic IDIQ Inc. being awarded the San Jancinto Plaza construction was deleted by engineering.  If you watched council the engineering department representative tried to claim it was a misprint or something like that.  Wrong.  Basic IDIQ was at $4.5 million while the other two bidder were at $7.5 million plus.  This bid was the talk of the contractor world when it became apparent that the city wasn’t going to disqualify Basic IDIQ for totally screwing up their number.

I know what you are saying – “but, but, but David K!  If we can save $3 million why not do it?”  Because the project can’t be completed for $3 million and the taxpayers will have to pay another $7 million just to fix what they don’t complete.  The other two bidders, F.T. James and Venegas Engineering MGMT and Construction, are good constructions companies who serve taxpayers well. They are direct competitors of my parent’s firm and while we would always like to beat them, we know they’ll produce a great product when they win.  Their numbers are close to what it costs to do the project.  You can trust these guys.  They are both in business and successful because they never underbid a project just to get some money in the door.

The real reason the item was jerked was because the contractor community has some real qualms with this Basic IDIQ group.  Not only is their bid irresponsible, there’s question on whether or not they have experience doing the type of construction work required in this contract.  There’s also another little hiccup in their record with the city.

When Basic IDIQ was doing the El Paso Times building remodel for the city it became apparent to the contracting community that they were NOT complying with the apprenticeship program laws set forth by the federal government.  A group of local contractors approached the city to point this out (they were initially pissed at Basic IDIQ’s no bid contract where they performed the work for as much as twice the cost it would have been if it had been competitively bid).  Guess what – not only was Basic IDIQ not punished for their infraction (a serious infraction that usually gets you blacklisted for life), but the contractors who brought the situation up to city officials had their business with the city (both present and past) audited down to the fifteenth decimal point and otherwise harassed.   Yes, you read that right – the people who pointed out where taxpayers got screwed were then harassed for their concern.

You have to wonder with Basic IDIQ’s documented past indiscretions, lack of experience in this kind of construction work and extremely irresponsible bid why they even made it to the agenda today.  You also have to wonder why a cover-up excuse was used for pulling it when it’s well known that the mayor and others have been badgered about awarding the contract.”

Not fair

City council did not have a chance to award the business.  Instead city staff asked that the item be deleted from the agenda.  The public now knows the dollar amounts bid by the two other companies.

If  the $4 million dollar bid was a mistake on the part of the bidder and that the bidder wanted to withdraw the bid why not award the business to the rightful winner?

If what refusethejuice wrote about complaining contractors being subjected to audits turns out to be true then corrective action needs to be taken.

We deserve better

Brutus