VP Housing Authority discusses litigation threat over work forms

At the Ville Platte Housing Authority’s Tuesday night meeting, the board discussed Edmund Habetz’s threat of litigation against the housing authority which came about due to a discrepancy in a public work bid form.
Following an executive session, the housing authority’s council Brent Coreil said, “Three bids were received by the engineers in charge of the Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) project for the Ville Platte Housing Authority that is being funded by the 2015 capital funding program. The bids were opened in March but no action was taken. When the bids were opened E.L. Habetz Builders, Inc. appeared to have the lowest bid, however in looking at the content of his bid, Habetz only bid on items one and two. He did not bid on item three.”
On the public bid form, each bidder was required to specify the cost to renovate nine two-bedroom apartments, 10 one-bedroom apartment, and six three-bedroom apartments. The bidder then was required to give the total amount for the entire project.
On Habetz’s bid form, the total amount for the project given, which was $178,252.00, was only the total for the two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartments that would be renovated. Habetz gave this as their total bid because there was a discrepancy on the form that asked for the total bid for items one and two, which were the one and two-bedroom apartments.
According to Coreil, “Habetz was using the discrepancy to say all you had to do was bid for one and two, and he felt that all of the other bids should be thrown out.”
When the amount to renovate the three-bedroom apartments was added in, Habetz’s cost for the entire project was $227,452.00, which now made Rock Enterprises Construction, LLC the lowest bid with a bid of $189,920.00.
The housing authority’s council said that there were four options for dealing with this situation. Coreil said, “The housing authority can either award the bid to Habetz, award the bid to Rock Enterprises, reject all bids and rebid the project, or abandon the whole project.”
The housing authority’s council then informed the board that “Louisiana Law Revised Statute 38:2212, specifically paragraph 6C, states that if public works projects require unit price bids, and there is a discrepancy between the base bid total, and the sum of the extended unit prices, the unit price bid shall govern.”
When looking at the unit price bids, Rock Enterprises Construction, LLC clearly had the lower bid, and therefore the board awarded the project to Rock Enterprises.
Other items approved at the meeting were:
•Purchase of 218 96-gallon trash cans, one for each apartment, from Industrial Supply for $16,214.82.
•Hiring of The Vercher Group as the Housing Authority’s auditor for the 2016 fiscal year.
•Renewal of part-time employees.