County Board votes down emergency services contractor

By Jim Cavanaugh
Nov. 6, 2008    ·    7:36 p.m.

Several county commissioners showed their support for local vendors Wednesday night as the Washtenaw County Board voted down a two-year contract for emergency and construction services.

The proposed two-year contract with Allied Building Service Company of Detroit, which failed by a vote of 4-4, would have cost the county $100,000 and have provided general construction services, including renovating, remodeling and maintaining facilities on an as-needed basis.

Although the county maintains its own facilities services, it cannot, according to County Operations Maintenance Manager David Shirley, provide all construction and emergency services.

Although he couldn’t recall any major emergency in the past 3 years, Shirley did say the County has suffered from some minor emergencies that required independent contractors.

“All of the emergencies we’ve had in the recent past have been related to power outages,” Shirley said.

Commissioner Rolland Sizemore was not convinced the county couldn’t provide all of its own emergency services.

“I’m still having a hard time figuring out why we have to bid out jobs,” Sizemore said, after questioning Shirley about the contract.

County Attorney Curtis Hedger said Allied Building Service was originally recommended due to its relatively quick response time to emergencies—1 hour, and its standard response time—4 hours. Several of the other bidders had a significantly longer response times, some as high as a day.

Allied was also chosen because it provided a higher wage than the next closest competitor. The county requires that contractors pay their employees a minimum “prevailing wage” for municipal contracts.

Those who supported contract wanted it passed because of its perceived low cost.

“It seems prudent to take the lowest bidder,” Commissioner Leah Gunn said. “We simply do not have the resources to hire people to sit around and wait for an emergency to happen.”

“My duty as a county commissioner is to spend taxpayers’ money as responsibly as possible,” she later added. “We need to preserve every penny that we can.”

Several Commissioners expressed concern about the fact that Allied Building Service was not based in Washtenaw County.

“I’m not really happy these people are in Detroit,” Sizemore said. “The people in here in this county pay our taxes.”

Commissioner Jessica Ping echoed Sizemore’s sentiments.

“It’s important to give back to the community,” Ping said, “and for that reason I will not be supporting this.”

Gunn responded to Ping and Sizemore’s comments about their support for local vendors, instead of Allied Building Service.

“There was an opportunity for every business in Washtenaw County to bid on this if they cared to,” she said.