February 27, 2009 State: Saratoga Springs' bidding violated labor laws
By DENNIS YUSKO, Staff writer
Last updated: 7:46 p.m., Friday, February 27, 2009
SARATOGA SPRINGS The city's indoor recreation center could be imperiled after the state Labor Department said today that Mayor Scott Johnson violated state labor law by not going out for separate work bids for the project.
Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith issued a stop bid order on the $6.5 million project, which the City Council recently awarded to Halfmoon construction company Bast Hatfield by a 3-2 vote.
The city violated the Wick's Law by not seeking individual bids for the project's general construction, plumbing, heating, ventilation and electrical systems, department spokesman Leo Rosales said.
"There was no competitive process, no open bidding," he said.
Saratoga County Democratic Chairman Larry Bulman, who is business manager of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 773, filed a complaint about the city's bidding process with the state this week.
"I told the mayor he had to make separate bids and he totally disagreed," Bulman said. "He said the city was exempt from Wick's on any projects, which is just ridiculous."
Neither Johnson a Republican nor city attorney Joseph Scala responded for a comment.
Johnson's office scripted the request for bids on the 35,500-square-foot rec facility, to be built on the South Side Recreation Field off Lincoln Avenue.
The city has 30 days to appeal the state's ruling or take corrective action by breaking up the project and re-bidding it separately, Rosales said. Wick's Law requires municipalities to bid separate contracts for construction projects costing more than $500,000, Rosales said. There were no fines levied in the Saratoga Springs case.
The stop bid order marked the second big setback for the rec center this week.
On Wednesday, state Supreme Court Judge Thomas D. Nolan Jr. ordered all work halted on the project until he hears arguments from the city and a local neighborhood group who has sued it.
The Friends of South Side allege in a lawsuit that Johnson and other members of the City Council and Planning Board violated the City Charter and state environmental review laws in approving the project. Nolan wants arguments from the city and the Friends group to be filed by March 13.
The legal hurdles threaten the center from being built because Johnson has said that the city needs to spend $1.7 million borrowed for it by April 1, or it loses the right to spend the funds.
"This is another example of the mayor's failure to comply with rules and regulations," Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim said.
