RM 05-06-77 - Laserfiche WebLink

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6. NEWIBUSINESS (Continued) a. (Continued) all you are doing is opening up the door to give these poor people who are basically having enough problems anyway. . . all they will get is a cheaper, shoddier job by people coming in here. The cash bond I agree with -- but the rest of it, I think you are just defeating the purpose of the cash bond and you are not doing the people of the community a service. Mr. Crighton: If I might respond to that Commissioner Robinson, the HUD regulations under that Section 605 refers to the actual dwellings being worked on, not the size of the contract. I disagree insofar as we will be getting unreliable contractors. I think that the cash bond and the new bid procedure will essentially be the same as we have now -- we have had a re- latively low contractor participation and I don't think it would get much worse. I think that the labor standards provi- sions . . we have been following them on a voluntary basis and it is costing us quite a bit of money. I am making this pro- posed change with the endorsement of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment. They firmly agree that since our community development funds are less and less every year, we have to make them go further. We have to be careful about how we spend our money. It is getting to be a very difficult problem. Mr. Robinson: Ok, you said paper work -- Davis Bacon isn't that much more paper work than what normal paper work is because of HUD money. I don't necessarily always agree with HUD, I can assure you, and to me, if you are going to open up the possibility that you are going to get more people -- let's say contractors that to me aren't as qualified as the larger type contractor -- then what you are going to do is eliminate that more reliable type contractor of the community from even getting involved. I thought that was the idea when you came in here before and you were talking about using a block bid process so you could get the more reliable, more reputable contractor, to bid on these projects. I don't think you have given it enough time to see if it is going to work because we haven't hardly instituted the block process. They did once, but then they stopped, and you went on an individual dwelling basis after that. I think we ought to stop and not be pushed into something real quick, and see how it is going to work on a block bid type thing, and see what kind of contractors you get.to bid on this work. I am interested more in seeing that the people of the community get a better job instead of a lousier job. Mr. Crighton: Well, we are too sir, but we are also interested in terms of how far our money will go and if we can realize -- say a saving of 183,000 this year -- that is a rather substantial saving. -7-