Saturday, August 27, 2011

Pacific Local Contractor Crys Foul Over Bid Process


Local Contractors Cry Foul Over Bid Process - The Missourian: Pacific News
Local Contractors Cry Foul Over Bid Process
By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
Local building contractors said the city did not play fair in letting the contract for the remodeling and expansion of city hall.
Speaking at the Aug. 16 board meeting, Justin Bingman of Bingman Construction, Pacific, said every one of the bidders talked with City Administrator Harold Selby and were told the importance of having a strong local team of subcontractors and suppliers.
Bingman said after the discussion he presented a bid that was competitive with the low bid that included $2.7 million in local subcontracts and materials.
“After the bids, I was brought in and you told me I had to get the numbers down to $3.4 million and (then you could) sell it to aldermen,” Bingman said. “I came in lower.”
“Do you have that in writing?” Mayor Herb Adams asked.
Bingman said he had received the assurance in a good faith discussion and believed that he would be the contractor for the job.
City attorney Dan Vogel said officials cannot make arrangements that are not in writing.
Bingman said at the bid opening, all the contracts came in close to each other and he was involved in discussions with Selby and Mayor Herb Adams after the bids had been opened as they were looking for ways to reduce the cost of the project. He thought they were meeting with him in good faith.
“You have to deal out in front. You can’t cut a deal,” Bingman said. “This is everything about honesty and truth. Here you are speaking one thing different than what happened.”
“We don’t have to go with the low contractor,” the mayor responded. “We can bring in those Harold was working with.”
Bingman said he had been led to believe that using local subcontractors and materials suppliers were the factors that would determine who got the contract.
“J.E. Foster (the contractors who received the contract) had $140,000 in local contractors and suppliers,” he said. “I had $2.7 million in local contractors and suppliers. The board split on this 3-3 and still the mayor decided to go with the out of town contractor.
“You promote the city of Pacific, but when it comes time for you to buck up and do the same thing you go with an out-of-town contractor,” he said.
Adams said he did talk with Bingman more than once. He said he had walked into Selby’s office when Bingman was there.
Bingman offered a different version of the conversation, saying he had been talking with Selby, who then walked out of his office and brought the mayor back to speak with him.
Adams said the conversations were not negotiations.
“The bid wasn’t close,” Adams told Bingman. “You were No. 9 and talk of a deal is clearly out of bounds.
“When all this is over I don’t want Channel 2 coming in here and calling me out on something,” the mayor said.
“Why was I led down this path?” Bingman asked, insisting that he had been told that all he had to was to get the bid down and use local contractors and material suppliers. He said Pacific Lumber, the city’s largest sales tax payer, was the material supplier in his bid.
Pat Hawkins, Pacific Lumber general manager, had signed a card to address aldermen but declined when his name was called.
Mike Gallagher, the electrical contractor on Bingman’s bid, said he had bid on the project.
“Even as a subcontractor, looking at $2.7 million going out of town is wrong,” Gallagher said. “If that money was here that would mean more insurance that I could buy from Alderman Reed, more fish that I could buy from Alderman Pigg and more employees I could hire from Alderman Eversmeyer. It would mean more money staying in town.
“This is absolutely wrong,” Gallagher said. “I could stop by Birdsong’s Gift Shop on my way home or go to Subway. To send that much money out of town is wrong.”
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Friday, August 26, 2011

Pacific Chamber Unhappy with City Bid Process


Chamber Is Unhappy With City’s Bid Process - The Missourian: Pacific News
Chamber Is Unhappy With City’s Bid Process
By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
The Pacific Area Chamber of Commerce went on public notice, objecting to the city’s decision to meet privately with the three lowest bidders on the city hall expansion project, allowing them to change their bids — and for eventually selecting a contractor from out of town.
Bill McLaren, Chamber president, spoke at the Aug. 16 board of aldermen meeting, taking issue with the process used in selecting the contractor.
“I’m here speaking for the Chamber of Commerce,” he said. The board of directors discussed this, they voted and asked me to speak.”
McLaren noted the city has done a great job of hiring local contractors in the past on jobs such as Highway F and Highway OO, where Unnerstall Construction got the job. On Osage, Unnerstall also did part of the work. West Asphalt, the primary contractor, is located in Pacific.
“Their employees pay taxes here,” he said. “It’s a wonderful thing, local contractors are working in Eagles View subdivision.”
But McLaren also noted that much local work is going undone. In West Lake subdivision, 350 lots sit empty. If they were sold, the assessed valuation of the city would be up.
“There were 25-30 houses demolished in the floodplain that pay no taxes now and there are vacancies on St. Louis Street,” he pointed out. “The situation is dire for construction people here.”
The $3.5 million contract to remodel and expand city hall was a chance to have a win for everyone, McLaren noted. It offered work for some smaller local contractors who don’t have the opportunity to bid in St. Louis, he said.
Chamber officials feel the city could have given seminars to help local contractors learn how to bid.
McLaren told officials that in addition to being Chamber of Commerce president he is a grading contractor who had been involved in many bids.
“If I bid on a job and see the low bidder does not get the contract, something is wrong,” he said.
McLaren said he’s never seen a job where contractors come back and start negotiating or where municipalities put rumors out and expect contractors to respond.
“This is not selling cars,” he said, reference to the mayor who sells cars for a living.
If the city intended to go back to the bidders, he said, all bids should have been thrown out.
“We struggle mightily,” McLaren said. “If you’re going to negotiate, you should negotiate with all the bidders.”
City Attorney Dan Vogel said it’s always the intention of the city to take the lowest three bidders and try to reduce the final cost.
“This was a process,” Vogel said. “All bidders knew that the top three bidders would be called in for further negotiation. We told everyone what we would do.”
“You, mayor, say buy local and you didn’t do it and you were the tie vote,” McLaren said. “This could have been done better.”
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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Pacific Alderman Approve Property Tax Rate Hike


Aldermen Approve Property Tax Rate Hike - The Missourian: Pacific News
Aldermen Approve Property Tax Rate Hike
By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
Officials approved a property tax rate increase Aug. 16 following a lengthy debate between the mayor and an opponent of higher taxes.
Aldermen voted unanimously to raise the real and personal property tax levy from $0.37100 per $100 of assessed valuation to $0.3982. The bill was read twice in order to meet the Sept. 1 deadline for notifying the state auditor of the new rate.
The new tax levy is an increase of $.0272 over last year.
The measure will raise property taxes on a home appraised at $100,000 (and assessed by $19,000) by $5.17.
In the public hearing on the tax increase, which took place prior to the vote, B. J. Lawrence appealed to aldermen to vote against the increase.
“Why in this economy are you raising taxes?” she said. “You have to stop this. You have to live within your budget like the rest of us have to do.”
Lawrence said Pacific taxpayers are already suffering economically and cannot afford a tax increase.
Mayor Herb Adams countered by saying the city had no choice and had used a formula dictated by Franklin County and the state of Missouri. It’s the same formula that cities follow every year.
“If you don’t like it,” he said, “you have to complain to Franklin County and the state of Missouri.”
If the city officials did anything different, Adams said, they would have to answer to the state auditor.
The mayor told Lawrence she had sent out e-mail messages that were misleading. He did not elaborate.
Adams also urged people in the packed council chamber not to put their trust in either Lawrence or himself, saying they should check with Franklin County for the assessed valuation and with the state auditor’s office for the rules determining the new tax levy.
“I’m telling these people, don’t trust me and don’t trust you,” he said to Lawrence.
Jeannine Stevens, deputy county clerk, said she had confirmed to officials in August that the 2011 city of Pacific assessed valuation was $115,305,726, down from $121,197,065 in 2010.
City Attorney Dan Vogel said the formula that sets the tax levy is designed to create neutral taxation, with no increase and no decrease.
“It’s meant to balance out,” Vogel said. “Assessed valuation in the city is down he said so no one would pay higher taxes.”
Lawrence said the claim that assessed valuation of individual homes would decrease is not believable.
“I’ll bet the assessed valuation on my house didn’t go down,” she said. “I’ll bet that not one person in this room will see the assessed valuation of their homes go down.”
Wayne Overkamp, Franklin county deputy assessor, said some residential homes might have been appraised lower in 2011.
Using this reporter’s home as an example, Overkamp said the appraised value was decreased by $5,000 in 2011. This would result in a decrease in assessed valuation of $950.
“But you could still get a higher tax bill,” he said.
The formula used by cities to set the tax levy dictates the highest amount the city can raise taxes without going to a vote of the taxpayers, the attorney said.
When pressed, Vogel said the formula does not dictate the lowest tax rate officials can enact.
“You could go lower,” he said. “You could choose to have no taxes.”
Lawrence said the biggest factor in setting the new tax levy is the $200,000 the city needs to repay the bonds on the city hall expansion project.
“You’re doing this so you can put your name on a new city hall,” Lawrence told the mayor. “When you put the city hall expansion in the budget it raised the tax rate by that exact amount.”
Both Adams and Vogel stressed that the budget had nothing to do with the tax rate. That claim appears to go against state law.
Eric Reichert, Villa Ridge, asked to speak and when he was recognized he read a portion of the legal notice the city ran announcing that the tax levy public hearing would be held during this meeting.
“The legal notice said the levy was set at what the budget shows to be required beginning July 1, 2011,” Reichert said.
Vogel insisted that the budget did not have anything to do with the tax levy.
“I’m reading this right out of your legal notice,” Reichert said.
“That’s the language that we put in the paper every year,” Alderman Ed Gass said.
Missouri revised Statute RSMO 67.110 chapter states that budget officer shall present to the governing body the assessed valuation of property for the year in which the tax is to be levied, and that of the previous year, and the amount of revenue required to be provided from the property tax as set forth in the annual budget adopted.
Chapter 2 says in more simple terms the tax rates shall be calculated to produce the same revenues as required in the adopted annual budget.
Officials insisted that they followed county and state laws in setting the new levy. Property owners will see the new rates on their 2011 property tax bills.
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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Pacific Mayor Adams Defends Controversial Bid Process


By Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
Mayor Herb Adams defended the controversial process the city used in selecting the contractor who will remodel and expand city hall, saying that city officials must play by rules that serve the municipality.
Adams was criticized for negotiating with three contractors privately after the bids had been opened publicly and for selecting a St. Louis contractor who had listed most subcontractors and material suppliers that were located out of town.
The mayor said he had an obligation to citizens to negotiate the best deal he could get.
“We all do what we know how to do best,” he said. “I am a trained and skilled negotiator. That’s what I do for a living.”
At the Aug. 16 board of aldermen meeting, Adams faced complaints about the bidding process from a local contractor who had bid unsuccessfully on the contract and from the Pacific Area Chamber of Commerce.
They said the city slighted a local contractor when it negotiated with the three lowest bidders and hurt the community by not selecting a local contractor who planned to use local subcontractors and material suppliers.
Adams said contractors and local business people who had heard him promote buying locally were confusing his responsibility as a person with his responsibility as mayor.
“If I’m buying something with my money I can afford to spend more,” he said. “I can speak about individual money, asking people to pay more, but when I’m dealing with city money another set of rules apply.”
Nine contractors bid on the contract to remodel and expand city hall. Bids came in between $3.7 and $3.9 million. The city negotiated with the three lowest bidders to get the total cost down to $3.5 million.
“We asked the three contractors to find ways to reduce the cost without eliminating any of the elements that our department heads thought were important,” Adams said. “We wanted a city hall that worked for everyone, but built at a cost we could afford.
“That is what negotiating is,” he said.
It’s understandable that people would want all the contractors and material suppliers who worked on the project to be local, he said, but they all had the same opportunities when they put in their bids.
The mayor insisted that the city administrator, city engineer, police chief, whose department would see the biggest expansion, and the project architect had made the best choice in selecting J.E. Foster for the job.
“We said all along that we wanted contractors from Missouri, not those from within the city limits of Pacific,” Adams said. “That would have been impractical and impossible. We chose a good contractor.”
Adams said it’s unreasonable for a contractor who came into city hall or called him about the project to think they had a deal with the city.
“Unless you have something in writing, you don’t have a deal,” he said. “That’s how it is in selling cars, which is what I do, and how it is in life.”
Comments about closed meetings also are misleading, he said. The city did meet in executive session to discuss the bid process. Because it was in executive session, the conversation was intended to remain in executive session, but someone had leaked details.
“Because the discussion was made public, I am now free to speak of it,” Adams said. “In the closed meeting, aldermen voted to authorize the mayor and city administrator to negotiate with the three lowest bidders. It was never said to the mayor or staff to re-let the bids.
“As mayor, I called for a vote to let us negotiate,” he said. “That’s what happened.”
Adams said Justin Bingman of Bingman Construction, Pacific, did talk with City Administrator Harold Selby’s office and called the mayor on the telephone.
“He is right, we did talk,” Adams said. “But his memory is different than mine. I never made any promises to anyone.”
Adams said city officials had to get the bid down to $3.5 million, which they did using the skills they possessed.
“We will never surrender free enterprise,” he said. “We cheer for the home team, but we could not afford the luxury of spending another $200,000.”
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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Pacific Mayor Adams City Hall Expansion at ANY COST

Pauline Masson, Pacific Editor Posted: Wednesday, August 24, 2011 6:32 pm
Our local Don Quixote has finally found a dragon with which to do battle.
B. J. Lawrence has been described more than once in this column as a misguided knight — errant out tilting at windmills, in search of dragons to slay, an allusion meant to illustrate her unending struggle to defend the poor and downtrodden.
Last week, at long last she found a foe to match her intensity.
At the Aug. 16 board of aldermen meeting, the mayor provided the first thrust, attacking B.J.’s credibility and her truthfulness, accusing her of spreading rumors in her blog. She ignored the jibe and aimed her lance directly at the heart of the hero of the hour. This time he had gone too far, she told the mayor. He had taken a step that everyone in the city would feel.
What she railed against was a decision by aldermen to raise the property tax rate 2.72 cents on every $100 of assessed valuation.
The unfortunate Pacific taxpayers were already suffering, she said, and could not afford more taxes.
In a series of thrusts and parries, she attacked the aldermen’s decision to inflict more cost on taxpayers with the intensity of a noble knight out to save the world.
And then — wonder of wonders — they spread before her an exposed flank, a mile-wide gap in the official armor. They said they really were not raising taxes at all. They said that the city of Pacific would see a decrease in assessed valuation and property owners would not pay more taxes.
They said they were using a formula based on neutral taxation — no increase, no decrease — that was set forth by the county and the state. In this case, they said, they had to yield to a higher power.
Why they gave her such a perfect opening befuddles the mind and beclouds an otherwise clear issue.
She said she did not believe that the assessed valuation of her home would decrease and she doubted that anyone in the room would see a decrease in the valuation of their home.
The room happened to be full. It appeared that most of the audience members were there to address yet another city action, the method in which the construction bid on the city hall expansion was handled. For whatever reason they were there, the people in the audience heard her arguments and those of the mayor, who addressed her directly, saying, “I’m telling people, don’t believe me and don’t believe you.”
Members of the audience squirmed in their chairs and mumbled under their collective breath.
What people can believe, the diminutive jouster said, is that the new tax rate will produce exactly the amount of revenue needed to pay for the annual bond repayment on the city hall expansion.
This has been another one of her dragons, the elected officials’ decision to expand city hall. She said local taxpayers would have to pay for it and local taxpayers could not afford it.
Now he had proven her accusation to be true by beefing up the city budget to cover the bond payments on the construction job.
The tax rate didn’t have anything to do with the city hall expansion, officials said.
Oh, but it did, she said. The rate was determined by the budget and the budget was inflated by the cost of city hall expansion. They could have held off on the city hall expansion, not budgeted the money, and they would not have needed to raise taxes.
I have to tell you . . . I saw a very different story in this newspaper last week on an almost identical municipal action. When the city of Washington raised its property tax rate by a similar amount, the lead sentence in the article said “Taxes go up slightly.”
It leaves one to ponder why Pacific officials didn’t repeat, in simple phrases, what appears to be the reality of the new tax levy, “a slight increase in taxes,” instead of saying over and over, it’s not a tax increase.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should report here that I personally don’t think the tax increase is all that bad and I don’t think expanding city hall is a bad idea. But I do think citizens know what the phrase “Read my lips. No new taxes,” means.
One can speculate that city officials missed an opportunity for literary excellence. They could have orated about small tax costs to individual taxpayers and big gains for the city as a whole with a new city hall, instead of holding forth with the theme that taxes would not go up.
They could have disarmed their unlikely opponent with her own weapon, saying we’re a small city and we’re making a small tax increase and we’re asking property owners to make a small sacrifice instead of prattling on about being hamstrung by higher powers.
Instead of dismembering his opponent, the mayor enhanced her image as a dreamer — someone willing to face a foe she knows had already won and to say out loud what no one else was willing to say. Rather than disarm her, he made her stronger.
She didn’t slay any dragons — the property tax rate increase was passed. But at the end of the debate she was still in the game. As jousting goes in La Mancha, folks, our little Don Quixote punched a few holes in a badly positioned windmill.
Contact Pauline Masson at paulinemasson@att.net or 314-805-9800.
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