Here we go again.
After almost a year, an award for construction supervision at Miami International Airport was stalled last week after the mayor’s office said it needed more time to review a bid protest from the company that was not chosen.
It had to be the airport, where bids go to be challenged.
And it had to be Munilla Construction Management, under a new name with the same initials, Magnum Construction Management.
MCM has had the contract since 2011, which is when their padrino, former Mayor Carlos Gimenez was elected. It started as a $50 million, four-year contract and turned into a $130 million, 10-year affair. Before the contract expired again last year, the county decided to put it out to bid. Applause! Well done! Wait for it…
Read related: Extension of MCM’s $120 million airport contract to get another look
MCM came in number two in the race for the $70 million job (over five years with two one-year options) after the first ranked choice, Suffolk/NV2A — who were also involved in the PortMiami tunnel project — got the recommendation from the selection committee in May. They were reportedly superior in every single category. Naturally, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava recommended Suffolk/NV2A when it went to the Airports and Economic Development Committee April 13.
But that’s where Pedro and Daniel Munilla — after a long, self-imposed exile since the FIU bridge collapse — came out themselves to complain that Suffolk did not meet the requirements when it came to local preference and minority business hires in past projects.
It didn’t matter. The committee voted it up, 3-2, bringing it to the full commission despite objections from committee chair Keon Hardemon — whose former chief of staff in Miami works for MCM now — and commission Vice Chair Oliver Gilbert. Let it sink in how significant that is.
Then, all of the sudden, la alcaldesa needs a couple of weeks to review the process. Seven days after making the recommendation? Was she not confident about it in the first place? Seven days after the Munillas moan about local preference and minority business quotas — as well as how great they’ve been doing since their epic failure of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapse — Levine Cava says she wants to think about it some more.
What on Earth changed in seven days?
Read related: Airport City is dead, but firm gets $65 million consolation prize
She could come back with the same recommendation. She could come back with a new recommendation. She could say let’s start all over again. Showing, once again, that politicians, lobbyists and campaign contributions is what governs the big budget decisions at the county, not professional recommendations from qualified staff.
The commission caved, voting 10-2 to defer the award for two weeks, until the May 4 meeting. Commissioners Rene Garcia and Joe Martinez voted no.
“If there’s new information, then that new information should be provided here, not behind closed doors,” Garcia said, adding that the delay would hold off businesses ready to move forward at MIA.
“Give all the commissioners a chance to be heard,” he said, referring to the committee members who got more opportunity to discuss the matter. “Do not silence us.”
Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz — who called the whole process “a mess that is disturbing” — said he didn’t want to spend two and a half hours discussing something that would be deferred anyway. Said Garcia: “That’s what we get paid to do.”
I mean, really. Diaz doesn’t want to hear from the public, taking every opportunity to limit constituent input, and now he doesn’t even want to hear from his colleagues? Isn’t that why he was elected?
Martinez had it spot on when he said that nothing will change in two weeks. The bid parameters will be the same. The first-ranked choice will still be Suffolk. The second ranked MCM will still be whining about it. The legal opinion will be the same. If it’s not, we have bigger problems.
The only thing different is that politicians paused a perfectly clean process because campaign contributors complained. Oh, wait, that’s not really different, is it? How can we have a different mayor and still hear the same old song?
Levine Cava has an opportunity here to put her foot down. She can say “Listen, we’re not doing business that way anymore.”
But noooooooo.
Read related: Pot calls the kettle black in Tri-Rail bid protest by MCM’s Munilla
Chief Operations Officer (and deputy mayor) Jimmy Morales said two weeks would give the administration time to answer some questions.
“This administration inherited three years of the process here and in the last week a lot of questions came up,” Morales told the commission.
Last week? The 15 letters from the two companies complaining and defending the award are dated as early as four days after the recommendation in May, 2020. How is that last week? In fact, the recommendation to the Airports and Economic Development Committee came with the caveat that the complaints were acknowledged and irrelevant or had been addressed.
A legal opinion found the information submitted by Suffolk in the bid process had been legally sufficient and the Small Business Division of Internal Services said the firm had made up any deficit in other projects and promised a 23% chunk of this project to the local small businesses. The Office of Inspector General investigated and rejected the accusations.
Eric Zichella, a lobbyist for MCM, said that the “make-up” plan for small business involvement must be submitted as part of the bid not afterwards. His pitch was pretty lame. Especially given the documentation that shows Suffolk was in compliance with everything.
Mike Llorente, a lobbyist for Suffolk, was much more convincing. He reminded the committee members that the “countless arguments and attacks against Suffolk, each one of these allegations was investigated and rejected,” since they won the recommendation in May of last year.
“One of our top priorities, obviously, is to make sure a good process was followed,” Morales said, adding that the administration also wanted to respond to the small businesses that should be getting the work they should be getting.
“We just want a little more time,” Morales, who is widely considered la Alcaldesa‘s number 2, said. “To make sure we get it right.”
Uh, oh. Too late.
Miami-Dade airport contract stalls as politicians meddle in procurement added by Ladra on
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