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Articles
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| Eastern Market |
VOICE writes, "
BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Members of an Eastern Market committee have said the city’s Office of Property Management unlawfully solicited market renovation work, and they have asked the D.C. Council to investigate the matter.
The Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee also said the solicitation neither adequately addresses historic-preservation concerns nor contains provisions to protect market activities during construction.
“The Executive Committee [of the market’s advisory committee] recognizes that this is another incident in what is a continuing harmful pattern that disregards law, regulations and the processes established to safeguard the historic building and character of Eastern Market,” states one of the reports of the committee."
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A District law mandates the city to notify the committee before addressing most significant Eastern Market issues, including soliciting bids for major construction work. Committee members said the Office of Property Management’s recently released solicitations for the $20 million renovation, scheduled to start next year, fall into that category.
“As with any EMCAC comment, we carefully examined and gave great weight to the questions raised,” the property office wrote in a statement. It adds that the solicitation addresses the committee’s concerns about historic preservation. “The general contractor is required to hire sub-contractors with specific qualifications to complete the job. Thus, the most qualified specialists will be part of the any team selected.”
Committee members also criticized the property office earlier this year, saying it executed a lease extension with Eastern Market Ventures, the market manager, without submitting the contract for committee review. The committee questioned the city for increasing the manager’s salary, particularly in light of complaints about the market ventures’ performance.
The property office apologized at a meeting last week and addressed some of the committee’s concerns over the management contract. But after the latest incident, the committee characterized the property office’s actions as a “pattern of willful disregard of the law.”
“EMCAC does not insist on review solely for the purpose of process,” the committee report states.
Property officials apologized last week to committee members, but they said the office’s solicitation had already covered many of the committee’s concerns, according to committee chair Donna Scheeder. She added that officials told her they wanted to move quickly to avoid delays.
The market committee report goes on to state, “In appropriate situations … EMCAC has recognized that circumstances required expeditious action and waived its statutorily prescribed review responsibility.” But, “EMCAC cannot waive its review responsibility in this multi-million-dollar project involving the complete renovation of the Market.”
At last week’s meeting, organized by Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells, the property office agreed to include a committee representative in biweekly construction meetings.
Scheeder said the committee still wants council oversight hearings into the property office actions, and added that D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray referred the matter to the Committee on Workforce Development and Government Operations. “We’re still very concerned,” she said.
It is not clear whether the committee will choose to hold oversight hearings on the matter.
“EMCAC is very concerned that an evaluative bid process is not being used in this case,” Scheeder wrote in a letter to then-property office director Lars Etzkorn. “Historic buildings carry special needs and requirements that are most successfully met by contractors with previous experience with historic structures,” she continued.
Mayor Adrian Fenty recently replaced Etzkorn with interim director Robin-Eve Jasper. Fenty said Etzkorn will be appointed to serve as an administrative judge on the Contract Appeals Board.
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Posted on Dec 20, 2007 19:54pm.
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