Staff backing, low bid fail to win job

By Joe Schoenmann

Sunday, April 26, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Clark County Commission made an unusual move during last week’s meeting — and the result is a lawsuit and a lot of questions.

The commission voted 6-1 to reject Fisher Sand & Gravel Co.’s $112.2 million bid to widen 2.5 miles of the northern Las Vegas Beltway.

Instead, commissioners went with a bid $4.6 million higher submitted by Las Vegas Paving Corp., arguing that Fisher’s subcontractors didn’t meet qualifications.

Fisher argued that, contrary to what its opponents were saying, state code does not require subcontractors to carry an A-2 general contractor’s license to perform highway construction.

In its lawsuit filed Wednesday, the company said county staffers, who are paid to study these issues before making recommendations, agreed with them.

Among other arguments, staff said publicly they could not find case law to support a “strict” reading of state law that prevents Fisher’s subcontractors from doing the work, and a deputy district attorney had delivered her opinion that the lower bid met all the criteria.

Commissioner Larry Brown cast the lone vote in support of the county staff position.

This sounds like taxpayers wind up paying extra no matter what. As it stands, we pay millions more for the roadwork. Did the county commissioners set themselves up to lose big in a lawsuit, one for which taxpayers could be paying a settlement and attorney fees?

We’ll have to wait and see. Commission Chairman Rory Reid said it was a complicated legal issue and “there would have been litigation no matter what we had done.”

Do commissioners trust their staff?

Staff recommendations are taken “very seriously, but at the end of the day, we have to make decisions, and if we disagree with staff we shouldn’t abdicate our responsibility and vote according to recommendations,” Reid said.

Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who made the motion to reject Fisher’s bid, said “staff did its job.”

So why did he initiate the vote against their recommendation then?

“I wasn’t comfortable after talking to both Las Vegas Paving and Fisher,” Sisolak said. “Fisher didn’t answer some questions I posed, and I wasn’t comfortable with that. The subcontractor license is a big issue to me. Either you have the background or you don’t.”

Did any commissioner say staff might not have been diligent enough?

Yes, Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani. “It seems that sometimes we have prequalification recommendations that we don’t tend to follow and the staff doesn’t tend to reject things that are incomplete,” she said. The staff doesn’t “go into as much depth as I think they ought to,” she said.

She added that such a closer look is “part of the cleanup work that we have to do.”

Has Fisher done this kind of roadwork in Nevada before?

For the past couple of years North Dakota-based Fisher Industries, Fisher Sand & Gravel’s parent company, has been working on the I-580 extension linking Reno and Carson City, the company’s Web site notes. The project includes five bridges and 8 1/2 miles of new six-lane freeway. One of the bridges is to extend 1,790 feet and stand 300 feet tall, “making it one of the largest structures of its type in the United States,” the Web site says.

The company also says one of its signature projects is the 5.1-mile comprehensive reconstruction of scenic Highway 179 near Sedona, Ariz.

So is this a case of a locally entrenched company using its juice with the commissioners?

Well, Fisher isn’t putting it that way — not yet, anyway. But in a statement released Thursday, however, Joe Miller, Nevada area manager for Fisher Sand & Gravel, said his company’s low bid “was rejected without merit, without legal support and against all legislative statutes written and voted into law by our elected government.”

In its lawsuit the company alleges the commission’s decision was an “abuse of discretion in violation of state law.”

Las Vegas Paving has a long track record as one of the dominant road builders in the valley. A Las Vegas Sun review of road work awarded by the Nevada Transportation Department, Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson from 1996 through 2006 found that Las Vegas Paving had the second highest dollar total for contracts — $634.6 million, far ahead of third place on that list, Meadow Valley Contractors, which had a total of $349.6 million. Frehner Construction Co. had the highest total, $661.9 million.

Is this lawsuit going to significantly delay the highway work?

That’s hard to say at this point, but probably not. It seems like one company or the other should soon be able to get to work on the project because a District Court decision could come as early as this week. The big question is how much extra is it going to cost taxpayers.