LISBON — Kevin French said he intends to file a request for injunction against the Lisbon School Department to halt the award of a $5 million contract to Ledgewood Construction “as soon as the courthouse doors open” Wednesday.
That decision was made, he said, after the School Committee decided Monday to proceed with its decision to award the contract to Ledgewood, the second-lowest bidder.
French, co-owner of Landry/French Construction in Scarborough, was the lowest bidder on a locally funded project to build an addition onto the Lisbon High School gym and renovate the school’s locker rooms. Ledgewood of South Portland was awarded the contract by the School Committee on Oct. 29.
After learning of that vote through an email sent by Nathaniel Cram of Scott Simons Architects, who designed the project, French sent an email protest to Superintendent Rick Green, followed by a more formal bid protest filed with the superintendent by French’s attorney, A. Robert Ruesch of Verrill Dana on Oct. 30.
In the formal protest, Ruesch asked that the contract award be suspended until it could be reviewed. He said the school system’s choice of Ledgewood suggested the competitive bid process was “secondary to other unspecified considerations, backroom deals or favoritism, all at the expense of the taxpayers.”
On Monday, French attended the School Committee meeting to make his case that, as the low bidder, his company had earned the contract.
The Landry/French base bid was $4.49 million; Ledgewood’s was $4.56 million, a difference of $75,731. The high bid was submitted by Sheridan Corp. of Portland, at $5.01 million.
Each of the seven bidders — all of whom were pre-qualified as able to fulfill the contract — also submitted costs for seven alternative add-ons, including scoreboards and gym equipment, and Landry/French remained the low bidder by about $15,000.
At Monday’s meeting, after hearing from French and a number of other people who argued that the bid should be awarded to Landry/French, members of the School Committee convened in executive session. After returning to public session, they took no action to adjust the award.
On Tuesday, according to Green, the school district’s attorney was in the process of preparing a formal notification statement awarding the contract to Ledgewood that he expected to be delivered late Tuesday or Wednesday.
French said state law requires the low bidder to be awarded the contract, and he intends to file an injunction to stop the award to Ledgewood on Wednesday. His decision is supported by the Maine chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, and by a number of Lisbon town councilors. And his interpretation of state law is supported by the Maine Bureau of General Services.
In addition to comments made at Monday’s meeting, members of the School Committee received a letter from Matthew Marks, chief executive officer of the Associated General Contractors, outlining what he believed to have been flaws in the bid process and weighing in on what Marks called an “ethical argument for the consistency, transparency and integrity of the public bidding process.”
According to French, he has received a number of messages of support from contractors, and several people at Monday’s School Committee meeting shook his hand and urged him to fight the award to Ledgewood.
On Tuesday, Ruesch said it would be best “to have the issue of the bid protest considered and heard by the judge before the contract is awarded or signed, or work is done,” hoping the court will expedite the request for injunction.
In addition to asking the court to stay the contract award, Ruesch intends to ask the court to “review whether the School Department has gone forward on, basically, a lawful basis under the statute and under the bid invitation” for the contract, and whether the School Committee had the authority to award the contract to the second-lowest bidder.
French said the message he’s received from the public and municipal officials is that the bid process must follow strict guidelines or Lisbon risks setting a precedent for future public bids if contractors become reluctant to work with town officials.
“I was pre-qualified to bid,” French said, “and after the bid was put in they changed the rules, and it’s not right. There’s a reason I’ve never heard of this happening, and that’s because towns don’t act in this manner.”
Landry/French and Ledgewood are not members of the Associated General Contractors of America, but the professional association said it decided to intervene on behalf of its “large and diverse membership” to ensure an open and competitive bid process.
It has asked Green to provide emails and other written communications about the project; meeting minutes, notes and other documents from the public meeting when the contract award decision was made; and a list of meetings, public and private, regarding the project.
Last week, Green said the decision to award the contract to Ledgewood was based on the company’s working relationship with the architect, and that he believed the “critical” contractor-architect relationship was worth spending more money.
According to Marks, Landry/French and Ledgewood are reputable construction companies, each with a history of working well with a variety of architects and engineers. He was uncomfortable with the school system’s decision to choose a company based on its relationship to another company.
“That certainly is going to send a message to the construction industry that having a relationship, a pre-existing relationship, with an architect is a determining factor, and that shouldn’t be the case,” he said.
Ruesch said knowing that a formal statement is being prepared to award the contract to Ledgewood, authorizing the company to start work, “is all the more reason why we have to get this in court as soon as we can.”
Contacted by the Sun Journal on Tuesday, Ledgewood Construction President Pete Pelletier said he had not yet seen the formal notification statement awarding the contract to his company. He declined to comment on the Landry/French bid protest.
Traci Austin, chairman of the Lisbon School Committee, deferred all comment on the Committee’s contract decision to Green.
Ruesch said he intended to file the request for injunction in Cumberland County Superior Court, the county where Landry/French is located.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
Editor’s note: This story was updated to reflect the high bidder was Sheridan Corp. of Portland.
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