O’FALLON, MO. • A carpenters union and two area companies
have filed federal lawsuits against the O’Fallon Fire Protection District
claiming bidding rules were violated on a $2.9 million new firehouse project.
One suit was filed by Carpenters Local 57 and Higgins
Electric Co. and the other by Demien Construction. Attorney Larry Kaplan, who
represents the plaintiffs in both cases, said Demien was the low bidder, yet it
was not awarded the contract.
In the case of Higgins Electric Inc., Kaplan said the
company was not selected because the electricians are part of the carpenters
union and are not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, something he said the district
claimed belatedly was necessary.
The fire district’s attorney, Neil Bruntrager, denied all of
the suit’s allegations.
“There’s nothing about what we did or how we did it that
wasn’t completely open and transparent,” he said. “What this is, is an
unfortunate effort to try to get a bid.”
Bruntrager said while it is true that Demien’s bid was lower
than the winner, Lamb Construction Co., he said Missouri law does allow for
some discretion by board directors. He said the difference in bids was $33,000,
but the district opted to keep taxpayer money in O’Fallon by selecting an area
company.
Kaplan said that if the district was going to give
preference to a local company, it should have stated that in the bid
specifications.
“It’s not easy to put together a bid for any contractor on a
complex project,” he said. “So they spend many hours putting together a bid,
following all the rules, and then when it comes time to award the bid they
said, sorry, we’re not going to do it, we’re going to give it to the other
guy.”
As for the claim by Higgins Electric, Bruntrager said that
the company was one of the finalists, but it filed suit against the district
the day before the bids were awarded.
“Why would we give the bid to a company that was suing us?”
he asked.
Kaplan said if the district was claiming that the reason
Higgins didn’t get the bid is the lawsuit, “that’s malarkey.”
“These are all politically motivated little districts, and
what this really is is a dispute between Local 57 and IBEW Local 1,” Kaplan
said. “The IBEW wants them to be disqualified on some grounds.”
Bruntrager said the reason for the district’s preference in
unions has to do with a project labor agreement the district adopted in 2011.
The agreement requires that any jurisdictional problem get resolved among the
business trades without resorting to a picket. The carpenters union has refused
to sign these agreements.
Kaplan called the claim “bogus” and said other unions, like
the laborers, also are not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, yet they will be
allowed to work on this project.
The suits claim that the companies’ rights to due process
and freedom of association were violated; each is seeking damages in excess of
$300,000.
Bruntrager said that groundbreaking on the new station would
happen later this month as scheduled and that the suit would not stop
construction.
Source: St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
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