The $800 School Contract That Smelled Wrong

To the Editor: At the risk of overburdening the patience of taxpayers in regard to the much-talked-of South School job, I undertake to say a word with a view to correct some misstatements made by the school board in their reply to Mr. Eldred on Saturday. I am, of course, aware that the complaint of a defeated candidate will be taken with considerable allowance, but there is no doubt in my mind that the school board in awarding the South School contract acted in a most unbusiness-like manner. The whole proceeding was marked with irregularity; difficulties were constantly raised to frighten contractors and stampede bondsmen, and numerous circumstances evinced either a reprehensible lack of forethought or a surprising amount of afterthought when the relative positions of the bidders had become known.

In the first place, it is not true that the bond was read or explained at the time it was first spoken of. It was merely alluded to in the blank which was read. Several other contractors besides myself supposed that it would not be different in form from the bonds usually given by contractors on other public works, or those of such public officials as treasurers of cities, counties, etc.; that is, one in which the various bondsmen assume a limited liability.

When this new condition was interjected into the competition after the bids had been received and were about to be opened, notwithstanding the fact that all of the bidders were not present, I suggested that the bidders be allowed to amend their bids, and that the opening of them be deferred until the next day. The purpose of the board to frighten out the financially weaker bidders was made manifest by the determination to go ahead and open the bids, and those who objected were told that if they did not like it they could withdraw from the competition altogether.

Although the board professed to be in a great hurry to have the work commenced at once, they concluded to defer the awarding of the contract without giving any reason except that they wished to consult their engineer. Had they acted in a fair-minded and businesslike manner they would have awarded the contract at once to the lowest bidder, whose good faith and responsibility were attested by a certified check for 5 per cent of his bid.

Several days of the time which they deemed so precious were then consumed in obtaining answers to their impertinent inquiries as to how the various contractors figured on the work, with the declared expectation that several of the low bidders would withdraw if they should re-examine the work. Was the board acting in the interest of the taxpayers in thus seeking to avoid getting the proposed work done as cheaply as possible, especially after requiring such a high bond and reserving half of the pay until the job was completed?

At another meeting considerable time was consumed in discussing the question whether the additional signatures of bondsmen’s wives would be sufficient to make the bond a good one, and the proposition was advanced that even then the board might not have good enough security and that something like a joint mortgage of their community property would only suffice. In consequence word was sent to the contractors to submit by a stated time the names of the bondsmen they proposed to offer if awarded the contract. I submitted the names of a dozen men who had agreed to assume a limited liability on the bond, nothing more being asked of them.

At the next meeting, the proposed bonds of other contractors not proving satisfactory, consideration of my list of proposed bondsmen was taken up, and it was at this meeting that I for the first time learned that all the bondsmen were ready to assume a joint liability for the fulfillment of the bond, and saw that the board, in moving up the standard raised by the various contractors, required that each bondsman, and not the aggregate, should be considered by them worth the full amount of the bond in their own right, apart from community interests, and furthermore that, while the law only asks two bondsmen, the board exacted three. The financial standing of one man after another was crushed, and if the board were loaning $20 in money on a personal note no greater caution could have been taken.

One of the three men selected by the board declined to become surety for the full amount of the bond, and at the appointed meeting I told the board this and assured them that if they would give me an additional day I would strengthen the bond to their full satisfaction. Every other bidder to whom the contract had been awarded had been given several days in which to file his bond, but the eagerness with which they denied my request and seized the first opportunity of gratifying their wish to award the contract to the next bidder was remarked by all the outsiders present. This wish became evident to my bondsmen, who were present for the purpose, and one of them remarked afterward: “Why, they seemed to be trying to bulldoze me from going on the bond.”

While, in the matter of taking bonds, it certainly is praiseworthy to require them to be good and valid, in this case the various steps taken to require a first-class one were the means adopted to give the contract to the next to the highest bidder, in whose favor I believe the board were prejudiced from the very beginning. I had the most reliable assurance that, had I been given another day in which to furnish even the cut-and-dried bond required, I would have fully met their requirements, and the school district would have been saved over $800 in the cost of the work.