GLENDALE : Builder Hired for Auditorium Garage

The City Council this week hired a Glendale contractor to build a parking structure for nearly $6 million, rejecting the claim by a Van Nuys company whose bid was $85,000 lower that it was disqualified so the job would go to a hometown firm.

The council voted 5 to 0 to award a $5.6-million contract to George C. Hopkins Construction Co. to build a three-level, 375-space garage at the Glendale Civic Auditorium.

Of the six firms that competed for the job, Hopkins submitted the second-lowest bid, but city officials said Neko Construction, which offered to build the structure for about $5.5 million, failed to properly fill out the necessary paperwork.

Neko officials argued that they were passed over on a “minor technicality,” for failing to list addresses for the subcontractors they intended to use. Bob Nehoray, a principal of the company, said he believed the city was showing favoritism to Hopkins, which has built several other city projects.

“Something fishy’s going on,” Nehoray said in an interview this week. “I can’t prove it but I can sense it. The city is willing to spend $85,000 more of the public’s money, and that I don’t understand.”

The parking structure is part of a three-phase plan to revamp and enlarge the aging civic auditorium. While work on the auditorium itself has been put on hold due to budget constraints, the parking structure is also part of another plan to help alleviate a parking shortage at Glendale Community College. Officials hope to have it completed in time for the fall 1995 semester.

The city actually solicited contractor’s bids on the project twice. In July, three contractors submitted bids for the job, including Hopkins, but Hopkins’ bid was thrown out because it arrived in the city clerk’s office late.

Shortly thereafter, Hopkins officials contacted the city attorney and urged that the other bids be disqualified because the companies had not listed complete information on their subcontractors, a violation of state law, city officials said.

Scott Reese, assistant director of parks and recreation, said he presided over a “pre-bid meeting” with all the contractors who bid on the project the second time around, including Neko, and explicitly told them to fill out the bid forms completely.

“I said that every line of every form must be filled out, and I made it known that if they weren’t, they may be subject to rejection,” Reese said.

Reese said there was no collusion between the city and Hopkins and even if it seems Neko was disqualified on a minor point, the city was bound to follow the law.

“The bidding process must be fair and square to all bidders, nobody should be given an advantage over anybody else,” he added. “If the council had already rejected all the bids on one occasion for that reason, they would have to do it again.”