Brentwood PLA a disaster

Eric Christen, of the Coalition for Fair Employment in Construction, writes:

Brentwood’s PLA Drastically Reduces Number of General Contractor Bidders and There is Only ONE Local Contractor on Winning Bid List!

When Brentwood’s $75M Civic Center was first being considered there were 25 general contractors who expressed interest in bidding the work. Following Brentwood’s pre-qualification process this number was reduced to 20. But on the day of the actual bid the total number bidding the work was suddenly down almost 50% to 11!

So what happened to the other general contractors who had expressed interest in a potential $40 million job in the middle of a recession when people are as hungry for work as they have ever been? CFEC had a hunch but decided to verify it by calling the contractors who didn’t bid after expressing an interest to do so just a few months earlier. CFEC found that 6 of the general contractors (all non-union) explicitly decided NOT to bid the job because of the PLA, a more than 30% reduction!

As devastating as this number is (and as much of a “We told you so” number as it is) what will of course never be known is just how many qualified subcontractors decided to not submit a bid to any of the remaining eleven general contractors who did bid the work due to the PLA. This missing number could have had an even more dramatic result on the final bid numbers had they not been dissuaded from bidding because of the PLA.

So what would the project have come in at had there not been a PLA? How much money would Brentwood taxpayers have not had to pay for this project had common sense verses Big Labor fidelity been more important to Brentwood City Councilmembers Chis “If you don’t bid this you don’t care about your workers” Becnel, Robert Taylor, and Brandon Richie? What we know is what study after study and common sense tells us: It would have been millions of dollars that local taxpayers will now be forced to pay. Wonderful.

Of course the people who pushed this nonsense will claim that the project “came in under the engineers estimate!” But of course EVERY project in California is coming in under such estimates in these tough times. What they cannot explain away will be the fact that they caused a 30% reduction in the number of bidders, period.

And what about that “local hire” bovine scatology Councilman Becnel and Big Labor bosses were selling as a justification for the PLA?

After doing some research CFEC has confirmed what every serious person who has dealt with PLAs already knows: PLAs do not and cannot guarantee “local hires” for a project. Such promises contained within PLAs are just that, a “promise” Big Labor uses to sell this vomit to any ignorant peasant who is dumb enough to buy it.

CFEC looked at the address for every subcontractor listed on the winning bid document. The results are as devastating as they are predictable:
ONE contractor was local at all and that contractor (Advanced Interior) will be only a minor player on the job.

TWENTY FOUR contractors were based anywhere from 30 to 1160 miles away from Brentwood.

The average distance from Brentwood of all the contractors is 146 miles!!
We were unable to obtain information on one of the contractors.
In conclusion we see, even at this early stage of the project, that the PLA has proven disastrous for Brentwood taxpayers, local contractors, and PLA proponents, especially the three who voted for it.