City Scraps Bids on Pipeline in Minority Flap

A new city program to encourage the hiring of minority contractors ran into trouble Tuesday as the San Diego City Council scratched all bids for a $4-million pipeline contract and decided to start over.

Among the charges and countercharges:

- The low bidder claimed that the city’s list of minority subcontractors was useless.

“What list?” complained Ferdinand Fletcher, attorney for Cameron Brothers Construction Co., a San Diego pipeline contractor. Fletcher said the city had first failed to provide any list, then had suggested firms that were non-union, without experience in building a pipeline, or out of business.

- City staff members countered that Cameron, with a 30% minority work force, had not advertised in the minority press or otherwise made a good-faith effort to subcontract part of its work to a minority firm. Cameron should be denied the contract, city management assistant Jack McGrory urged.

But Councilman Bill Cleator said the city’s new program--apparently requiring that a firm subcontract to a minority firm, even when the firm could handle the job itself --”doesn’t make any sense.”

Councilman Uvaldo Martinez concurred.

“Somehow the policy got mixed up,” added Councilman Bill Mitchell.

As the debate continued, acting City Manager John Lockwood promised that his staff would revise the policy after meeting next week with the city Equal Opportunities Commission.

Finally, by a 5-2 vote, the council rejected all bids for the Alvarado Pipeline, deciding to rewrite its policy on doing business with minority firms and to seek new bids on the pipeline later. The dissenters, Cleator and Mitchell, argued that Cameron deserved the contract and should not be penalized because the city’s new policy was confused. (The 4,000-foot pipeline is to replace another one going from a city pumping station at Fairmount Avenue to Waring Road.)

The council on March 4 approved the Minority and Women’s Business Enterprise program. By contracting and subcontracting to minority and female-owned firms --or requiring its contractors to make a concerted effort to work with such firms--the city hoped to let 15% of its 1985-86 contracts to minority-owned firms and 5% to female-owned firms. All bidders for city contracts must prove that they have sought to work with minority- or female-owned firms.

Although Fletcher argued that the city’s list, once Cameron eventually found it, was useless, McGrory claimed that the city gives all bidders a current list of minority- and female-owned firms --the same list used by the California Department of Transportation.

Despite the fuss over the pipeline contract, three or four other city contracts have been let successfully under the new guidelines, McGrory said, and the low bidders “had met the (minority) goals.”

Even one of the strongest advocates of the minority contracting program looked pained as Fletcher offered a litany of complaints.

“It’s a new process,” Mayor Roger Hedgecock said. “But I feel badly about the procedure involved.”

So did the Cameron pipeline company. “It’s ridiculous,” said company president William Cameron.

Cameron said he didn’t know if he would bid again once the policy is clarified.