Company Complains About Construction Bid at Syracuse Hancock International Airport

Company Complains About Construction Bid at Airport 
Syracuse Post Standard, NY

February 12, 2004 


An Albany-area firm says Syracuse city officials are
steering a $12.3 million airport construction contract
to a local company. 
     
Delaney Construction of Gloversville submitted the
lowest bid to resurface 25 acres of pavement at
Syracuse Hancock International Airport, city records
show. 

The bid was certified as the lowest qualified proposal
by the engineers hired for the project, by the airport
commissioner and by the city budget director. 

But last week, the city notified Delaney and six other
firms that it was dismissing their bids. 

The city says it dismissed the bids in an effort to
head off a lawsuit from another bidder and to resolve
a potential legal problem related to the hiring of
minority-owned subcontractors. 

Now it's Delaney Construction that plans to sue the
city over the issue, owner Tim Delaney said Wednesday.


"They've come up with a pretty poor excuse to give the
mayor's favored contractor a second bite of the
apple," said Delaney. "We've consulted with our
attorneys, and we expect to do something soon." 

City Budget Director Ann Rooney Wednesday said the
city will seek proposals for the project a second time
after some contract wording is changed. 

That means the firms - all of which now know exactly
what their competition proposed - will have to submit
new proposals to be considered for the job. 

Delaney, whose company was the lowest bidder by about
$9,400, said that gives the second-lowest bidder,
Structural Associates Inc. of East Syracuse, an unfair
edge. 

"We're not going to participate," he said of the
second bidding round. "We've been in this business for
20 years, and never ever have we ever had anything
even remotely close to this happen." 

City officials strongly deny anything was done to help
Structural Associates or any other firm. They said
they took the unusual action of going to a second bid
because their legal advisers told them they had no
other choice. 

"The decision was made on the advice of outside
counsel, 

and that's all there is to it," Syracuse Mayor Matt
Driscoll said, referring all other questions 


attorney David Garber. 

Garber, a Democrat who served as corporation counsel
for the administration of Lee Alexander, is frequently
hired by the city to handle complicated matters
related to the airport, which is an area of his
expertise. 

In this case, he found that the language spelling out
goals for the use of women- and minority-owned firms
on the project was "ambiguous" and open to different
interpretations by bidders. 

Delaney came in slightly lower on the
multimillion-dollar bid, but Structural Associates
pledged to use a greater percentage of disadvantaged
contractors, bid documents show. 

"The wording makes it difficult to award a bid,
because on the one hand you have the cost and on the
other the participation of (minority- and women-owned)
businesses," Garber said Wednesday. "Either one could
make a case." 

The dispute is the most recent controversy over the
Driscoll administration's handling of contracts at the
airport. 

Last fall the city rebid a contract for the management
of Hancock's parking garage and public lot after the
only firm to respond was EHM Facilities and Parking
Management, a newly created company co-owned by local
businessman Arthur "Skip" Henning, a political
supporter of Driscoll. 

The administration is now weighing EHM's second bid
against a proposal from Allright Parking, which
currently manages the lot. Houston-based Allright, the
only other bidder, offered to pay the city about
$130,000 less each year for the management rights. 

Part of Driscoll's motivation in rebidding the parking
contract was to demonstrate his administration's
fairness and openness in the wake of public criticism
over the city's awarding of a no-bid airport contract
to another Driscoll political supporter. 

A firm created by Syracuse businessman Sam Tawill was
given the right to deliver delayed luggage to airline
passengers, prompting Terry Quigley, who had done the
job under the administration of Roy Bernardi, to
challenge the city in court. 

The most recent dispute involves the rebuilding of
Hancock's aprons. 

Since the work will be paid for primarily by federal
grants, the bidding package included a form asking
firms how far they would go toward meeting the city's
goal of 15 percent participation by disadvantaged
firms. 

Structural Associates said it planned to use the firms
for 15 percent of the work; Delaney guaranteed a
minimum of 5 percent, according to the Dec. 11 bid
documents. 

Delaney said it could do the work for $12,284,567.89,
records show. Structural Associates bid $12,294,000,
falling roughly $9,400 short, to create the closest
bids on a major city contract in Rooney's memory. 

"It's unheard of," Rooney said. "Believe me it was the
talk of City Hall that day." 

After Delaney's bid got certified as the lowest, it
was on its way to the mayor's office for a
recommendation. Then the city received a letter from
Structural Associates that the city interpreted as a
thinly veiled threat to sue the city for ignoring the
minority hiring goals, Rooney said. 

The city brought in Garber. He decided that the form,
which had been used by the city for years, was unclear
about how much those goals should matter in awarding
the contract. 

Garber said he is redrafting the form and will try to
get the federal government to sign off as soon as he
can. The city will have to again advertise for bids. 


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