Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Construction bid prompts look at process

A $19 million bid for a new city park with 12 softball fields, one might think, would be an inch thick and filled with scores of numbers.

But when Roche Constructors Inc. bid on the city's Alexander Hualapai Softball Complex, only one number - $19,095,435 - appeared on its paperwork.

That was enough for the city. But then the courts were asked to review the call.

Now, the new softball complex could by delayed by months by a legal battle over whether Roche or a company that submitted a much more thorough bid should have won the construction contract.

The looming legal battle will highlight the advantages - and potential pitfalls - of the discretion used by government agencies in determining whether bids have sufficient information to be accepted or are judged inadequate.

The discretion to accept so-called "messy" bids, government officials say, can save taxpayers hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars.

That could be the case with the softball field complex, with Roche's bid having been about $1.4 million less than the second lowest offer, a $20.5 million bid by APCO Construction.

But APCO, also known as Asphalt Products Co., is crying foul, arguing that City Hall blew the call on this one.

APCO representatives appealed to the City Council last week to reject Roche's bid, which they argued was missing required information.

Unable to sway the council, APCO took its case to court. The company recently obtained a temporary restraining order on the contract, and a hearing to consider a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Monday.

A central question in the case is whether Roche's lump-sum total for the project - in a bid with no other numbers showing how that figure was reached - represented an acceptable bid for the park in northwestern Las Vegas.

Four days after the bids were due, Roche submitted additional details, including the estimated cost for the different parts of the project. APCO stressed, however, that it provided that information on its original bid.

City and Roche representatives, though, contend that Roche's original bid contained all of the numbers - in fact, the only number - required.

The softball complex bid, city officials explained, was a "lump-sum bid" in which only the total price tag is needed.

In contrast, for other projects, such as building a new road, bids must include information about the "unit price" of each component.

Those prices are important because contracts often change midstream. If or when that happens, the state then already has the contractor locked in on the price of, say, additional yards of asphalt.

For example, the state Transportation Department recently rejected a bid from Meadow Valley Corp. to build part of the Blue Diamond Highway because the company left blank a line item asking for the cost of overhead, said Richard Yeoman, administrative services officer for the Transportation Department.

Meadow Valley has protested the decision to the state. But if it stands, the Transportation Department would have rejected a bid of just under $26 million to accept a $26.6 million bid from Capriatti Construction.

Whether government bid processes are rigid or flexible, Las Vegas Councilman Larry Brown said, the overriding principle always should be to "get the best deal for taxpayers."

That might mean, Brown said, that governments sometimes take the risk of dealing with "messy" bids. To make his point, Brown turned to an axiom about how lawmaking itself often is messy.

"I love sausage, but I don't want to know how they make it," he said. "And I love low bids, but I don't want to know how we get there."

The city's ability to accept what on the surface might appear to be an incomplete bid could save taxpayers more than $1 million on the softball complex, he said.

But that discretion also is why the city finds itself in court.

Las Vegas' new softball complex was expected to be finished by the end of 2007.

But depending on what happens Monday, the project's time line could be pushed back pending the courts' resolution of the contract issue.

Regardless of how District Judge Valorie Vega rules on the requested injunction, the city may change its bid process in the future in an effort to avoid similar disputes.

"We will never eliminate irregularities, but maybe we will ask for less information," said City Manager Doug Selby.

That would help avoid confusion over which information is required and which is optional, a debate at the heart of the dispute over the softball complex contract.

Councilman Steve Ross, an electrician by trade, is among those who believes that the bidding process would benefit through additional clarity.

"I understand the need for flexibility," Ross said. "But certain things (that) are mandatory need to be in black and white."

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