City contract awarded to Springfield mayor's company

SPRINGFIELD — Springfield Mayor Robert Walker’s construction company was awarded a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild seven homes through the city’s Community Development Block Grant Housing Rehabilitation Program.

Walker’s company, LaRew Enterprises, submitted the low bid for the project, $428,386. The next lowest bidder, Tommy Hamm Construction, submitted a bid of $455,476. There were two other bidders on the project whose bids were more than $70,000 higher than the low bid.

Walker stated early on he intended to bid on the project as he has in the past and submitted information to the state to avoid a conflict of interest. He abstained from a vote during a meeting Monday to award the bid.

He said there’s not a conflict because elected officials have no influence on the bids, and he will enter a contract with each homeowner rather than with the city.

Usually the program allows low-income homeowners to have their residences brought into compliance with housing codes through repairs and upgrades by licensed contractors. However, when the necessary repairs are substantial, the houses are torn down and replaced. Generally, that is when the cost of repairs total at least 50 percent of the home’s value.

Most often, the number of houses that need rehabilitation outnumber the ones that need replaced, but the vast majority of applicants in Springfield qualified to have their homes rebuilt.

The city received a $750,000 grant from the federal Housing and Urban Development for the project, and of that $629,500 is available for construction. At least 10 homes must be rehabilitated with that money.

Usually each project is bid out individually, but to try to make the dollars stretch further, Dennis Dingman, of Summit Professional Services, a consulting service hired by the city to administer the grant, recommended the city put all the rebuild out to bid at once.

If the projects had been bid individually, assuming the numbers would have stayed the same, LaRew Enterprises would have been the low bidder. A price was given for each home, and LaRew Enterprises bid $61,198 for each home; Tommy Hamm Construction bid $65,068 for each.

There wasn’t discussion about whether to award the project to the mayor’s company, but there was discussion about the task force that advises the city about the grant program.

Commissioner Gerry Lowther said he was concerned the Citizens Advisory Task Force did not seem to have a procedural policy in place. He said sometimes just one person of the five-member board shows up for meetings, and that one person’s vote is enough to make decisions.

“When we have one show up, it is hardly representative of the community they are supposed to represent,” Lowther said.

Dingman said if meetings are postponed because not enough members show up, it could push back the timeline of the administration of the grant, which could cause problems because there is a deadline to complete the program.

Commissioner Carl Curti suggested adding more members to the group, which would increase the chances a larger number of members would be at each meeting. The city would be able to set a number that would constitute a quorum.