When the Miami Beach City
Commission-majority decided at its March 14 meeting
to hire Magnum Construction Management Corporation to
perform a $22.3 million renovation of the waterfront 19-acre
South Pointe Park, Alberto Ribas, president of
A2 (A-Squared) Group, which also competed for
the contract, told the media he didn’t plan to sue. “We
don’t do a lot of litigation,” Ribas told the Miami
Herald, though he expressed the opinion that it
was “bizarre” that five out of seven elected officials
backed MCM even though the city’s staff and experts
overwhelmingly recommended his company.
Apparently Ribas changed his mind about not suing.
On
March 26, the city of Miami Beach received a letter from
Jack Shawde and Gabriel Nieto of the law firm
Berger Singerman. Their client: A2. “Please be aware
that A2 intends to exercise all available legal rights to
challenge the Commission’s action in Circuit Court,” the
letter informed. “Accordingly, in light of the foregoing,
should the City proceed with finalizing a contract
with MCM it would do so at its own risk.
Additionally, given the problems outlined above, the City
should reconsider its decision to award the contract to MCM.”
The
sentences quoted above were in the last paragraphs of a
three-page letter that argued the City Commission’s
selection of MCM was “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to
the requirements of law and the City Code, denied A2 due
process of law, was pretextual and based upon rationale that
was illogical and contravened both the express terms of the
City’s [invitation to bid] and the fundamental purpose of
competitive bidding — to ensure that city contracts are let
pursuant to transparent and defined criteria.” The City
Commission, A2 argued, awarded MCM the South Pointe contract
based on “alternative criteria” provided by, well, say MCM.
See, there were two bidding rounds for the South Pointe
contract. In the first, issued last year, both MCM and
A2 Group filed proposals, but both were rejected under
“super-strict” guidelines, as City Attorney Jose Smith told
the Herald. MCM reacted by suing. That case
was thrown out by the court, but the city issued
another set of request for proposals. MCM challenged
that one, too, on March 12 and 13. Too late, according to
A2’s lawyers, as city code requires that any challenges be
made “two days prior to the opening of the bid.” But neither
that, nor a poor evaluation by the U.S. Coast Guard and
MCM’s litigious history, stopped Commissioners Michael
Gongora, Simon Cruz, Matti Bower, Richard Steinberg and
Jerry Libbin from voting for MCM (Mayor David Dermer and
Commissioner Saul Gross voted against).
“MCM
is a much stronger company with a much larger
capacity than A2,” Steinberg explained to Murmurs. Another
bonus: MCM’s bid was $800,000 cheaper, he said.
MCM
Vice President Pedro Munilla did not return phone calls from
Murmurs prior to deadline. (Munilla, though, did give
Commissioner Libbin a thank-you card for his support.)
Meanwhile, A2 is looking for information. The Berger
Singerman legal team has made a 15-point public
records request for anything having to do with the
South Pointe Park project, including “electronic
communications” (e-mails), sign-in sheets for public
meetings, sign-in sheets for those wishing to see public
officials, note pads and “all documents maintained by the
city relating to the debarment, proposed debarment
or license suspension of Magnum Construction
Management Corp., MCM Inc., M-C-M Inc. or any of its
principals, including without limitation, Mr. Jorge Munilla.”
Last
Friday, Murmurs found an A2 executive in the city’s
Purchasing Department who declined to comment. Also
tight-lipped is Nieto, one of the A2 attorneys, other than
to say that his firm is still gathering information. Among
the pieces of info they are likely to find is 46 pages of
Miami-Dade County documents related to six
“violations” county officials say the company committed
between 2001 and 2003 related to jobs at Miami
International Airport and Jackson Memorial Hospital.
Three of the violations had to do with “modification of
terms/prices of payment” without county approval. They’ll
also find an e-mail from Commissioner Simon Cruz dated Jan.
4 that “I am with A2 (squared) and I am not surprised
that they won the overall points; they are good.”
But
A2 is not just curious about MCM and its owner. A2 also
wants records of all forms of communication between
Miami Beach officials and that company’s “representatives,
agents, independent contractors, lobbyists … and
attorneys relating to the project.”
“It’s
their right to do anything they want,” said Armando
Gutierrez of Gutierrez and Associates, who earns $2,000
a month representing MCM. But Gutierrez said apart from his
appearances at two public hearings related to the project,
he couldn’t lobby any city commissioners during a bid
process thanks to Miami Beach’s “cone of silence” law.
A2
also wants records of any communications related to Frank
Pintado, president of VIP Parking, which operates
the city’s parking garages, and a known volunteer in
political campaigns. Pintado, though, has not registered
as a lobbyist with the city of Miami Beach. Pintado did
not return phone calls from Murmurs by deadline.
|
“It’s their right to
do anything they want,” said Armando Gutierrez of
Gutierrez and Associates, who earns $2,000 a month
representing MCM. |
Dang Consultants
By
far, the best name for a municipal board Murmurs has heard
so far is Miami’s Homeland Defense/Neighborhood
Improvement Bond Oversight Board. It’s an outgrowth of
the $255 million bond issue so named when it was first
proposed in October 2001 to appeal to residents’ patriotism
in order to finance a slew of capital improvements. It
worked — voters approved the measure a month later.
At
any rate, there’s a problem in General Obligation
Bond land — a shortfall of about $39.6 million. To
balance the books,
Mary Hanlon Conway, the city’s
chief of operations, proposed in a meeting last Friday to
not fund certain parks, police stations, waterfront and
other capital improvement projects. With the possible
exception of Bob Flanders, chair of the committee,
none of the board members was
happy.
Gary Reshefsky, an appointee of
Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, fumed that not
enough money was being devoted to parks.
Hattie Willis, Commissioner
Michelle Spence-Jones’ appointee, was annoyed that
capital improvement projects were being taken away from
District 5, an area that includes Overtown.
Mariano Cruz, a Commissioner
Angel Gonzalez appointee, complained that he saw no
improvements for Allapattah.
But perhaps
the best rage against the powers that be was by
Manolo Reyes, who said he felt
“duped” and that the man who appointed him, Commissioner
Gonzalez, was “very upset” and wants a list of all the
consultants who were paid through the bond issue. With that,
the oversight board approved a resolution to recommend
against the city’s bond spending plan. The sole dissenter:
Flanders, who went out of his way to tell Conway how
hard-working she was and how the decision wasn’t personal.
“He has done
it in the past,” said Frank Castañeda, Gonzalez’s
chief of staff, regarding his boss’s tendency to demand
consulting fees lists, particularly during budget hearings.
So far, though, Castañeda said Gonzalez has not made such a
request of Homeland Defense.
That’s OK.
Activist and chronic e-mailer Brent Cutler is making
the request himself. Hours after last Friday’s bond meeting,
he requested a list of all consultants the city of Miami
“has paid out of this bond,” another list breaking down how
much each consultant was paid, the jobs the consultants were
asked to perform and a list of all the subcontractors who
received work from the “prime contractors with a further
breakdown of monies paid to those subcontractors and what
they were contracted to perform, and whether performance was
satisfactory.
Dang
Consultants, Part 2
Getting back
to last Friday’s Homeland Defense/Neighborhood Improvement
Bond Oversight Board meeting (gotta love that name!),
Terence Riley, president of the Miami Art Museum, picked
a great time to ask for $2 million in HDNIB Oversight
Board money to help build a new $208 million museum ($100
million of which is coming from county bond money) in
what is now called Bicentennial Park. Riley announced his
intent to break ground on the museum in 2008, have it
completed by 2010 and ready for the general public by 2011.
Riley expressed confidence that the museum would raise the
private funds it needed to finish on budget. At one point he
even said that he “felt sorry” for Michael Hardy,
president and CEO of the Carnival Center for the
Performing Arts. However, Riley said the financial
problems the Center is still experiencing won’t happen at
MAM, stating that he had just finished building a museum in
New York and that he “didn’t come down to Miami to not make
it good.”
And then the
board members took a look at the preliminary budget. Board
members Manolo Reyes and Jose Solares noticed
an awful lot of consulting fees: More than $2.2
million for MEP/FP consultants (whoever they are), about
$1.1 million for structural consultants, $50,000 for digital
systems consultants, $100,000 for thermal studies, $200,000
for a lighting consultant, $125,000 for
acoustical/audiovisual consultants, $50,000 for an
elevator/escalator consultant (lots of comments about
that), $50,000 for a retail consultant, $100,000 for food
consultants, etc.
Riley said he
wanted to make sure every contingent was covered in
the budget. The board ultimately approved Riley’s request,
with Solares casting the lone “no” vote.
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