`Just Business' Or Bias? -- Low Bidder On Lakemont Blvd. Project Challenges City's Rejection; Lawsuit Hinted

BELLEVUE

It would be the largest job Russell Meeds has ever done.

But there is no trace of doubt in the 28-year-old Monroe man's voice when he says his small, black-owned construction company can lift the huge concrete bridge girders in place for the Lakemont Boulevard Southeast extension.

The city is certain, too: The job is too hard for Meeds.

Just weeks before work is to start on the completion of Lakemont Boulevard, the dispute is threatening to mire the project in legal gridlock. Also at issue are the state and King County guidelines for the use of minority contractors.

For nearly 30 years, first the county and then the city has pushed for the extension to connect an isolated but fast-growing area of southeast Bellevue to Interstate 90. But the 1.1-mile road has been delayed time and again over concerns it would damage nearby Lake Sammamish and the steep hills that overlook it.

With that fight over, the Bellevue City Council plans to award an $11.7 million contract tonight to build the road and bridge.

But not to Kulchin-Condon & Associates of Oakland, Calif., which planned to employ Meeds as a key minority subcontractor. The company was the lowest bidder on the project, offering to build the road and bridge for $423,000 less than the next-lowest bid.

The city Transportation Department disqualified the bid, mainly because engineers concluded that Meeds' company did not have the experience or expertise to do the $1 million job of placing the 136-foot concrete girders atop the bridge piling.

That means the contract will go to Wilder Construction of Bellingham and Meeds' minority-owned competitor, 3A Industries.

Kulchin-Condon plans to protest the decision during tonight's meeting and is threatening to file a lawsuit that could delay the project for at least a year unless the council changes its mind.

"There is no justification here to take a legitimate (minority businessman) who is going to perform properly and say we don't like him, we are going to get rid of him," said Robert Marconi, Kulchin-Condon's attorney.

That's not the case, said Clark Douglas, the city's project manager for the Lakemont extension.

Douglas said an investigation by the city found that Meeds' company, Meko Construction, did not meet the state- and King County-mandated test for minority and women subcontractors of providing a "commercially useful function."

In other words, Meko didn't have the skills to do the job.

"We never got the sense that Mr. Meeds was anything but sincere," Douglas said. "He's a young guy working hard to start a business. It's the American Dream. But this is an $11-plus million job."

Mayor Ron Smith said he won't question the recommendation of the city's traffic specialists.

"Unfortunately, this is the nature of the beast," Smith said. "They (Kulchin-Condon) can squawk all they want. I'm going to leave it to my professionals."

At the heart of the dispute is the commercially useful function test, which is part of the state and county guidelines governing the use of minority subcontractors. The measure was designed to stop general contractors from using "dummy" minority businesses to meet state guidelines on hiring women, African Americans and other minorities.

In this case, Meeds argued, the standard is being applied unfairly.

Meeds, 28, founded Meko three years ago and registered it with the state's office of women and minority enterprises. The company does mostly excavation work and employs between five and a dozen people, depending on the season.

Meeds, whose largest job to date totaled $300,000, says he has worked hard to earn a share of the commercial-construction market but hasn't been successful.

"To be perfectly honest, I haven't done girders," he said. "But there is no other place for me to learn except county or state jobs. There is no work in the private sector."

But Douglas says the city doesn't view this job as a training ground.

"We would say you don't start by picking up the biggest girders in town; you start with the little ones," he said.

The girder job is considered difficult and requires two cranes working in tandem to lift the beams into place. Meeds says he has studied the diagrams, has seen the work being done and knows he can handle the task.

"I'm being held down," Meeds said. "This is not what the minority program is supposed to do. It is kind of like the good-old-boy sort of network."

Alan Macnab, Kulchin-Condon's district manager, called the city's decision a sham and a waste of taxpayers money.

"If Russell Meeds hadn't been a minority, you could have had a cappuccino operator doing the work and no one would have questioned it," he said. "He is being discriminated against because he is a minority and they can put a microscope on him."

Douglas said Meko was woefully unprepared for the job, lacking the equipment and employees who have worked on girder placement.

"Every time we looked at an area and asked if these guys were adding value, . . . we just couldn't find it," Douglas said.

Meeds directed most of his anger toward Reginald Frye, the head of 3A Industries, one of the region's largest African-American-owned construction firms.

Frye, whose company will perform the same girder work for Wilder Construction, wrote a letter to the Bellevue Transportation Department challenging Meeds' ability to do the job.

That Frye was behind the challenge was particularly irksome to Meeds and Kulchin-Condon, given Frye's company's controversial past.

In 1993, Frye and 3A Industries were involved in a federal investigation after allegations that construction firms were using minority and women subcontractors, including 3A Industries, as fronts to skirt federal and state affirmative-action laws.

The U.S. Justice Department reached a $715,000 out-of-court settlement with Peter Kiewit Sons, of Omaha, Neb., and General Construction, now owned by Seattle-based Fletcher-General. The companies did not admit liability or wrongdoing.

One lawsuit alleged 3A Industries and another subcontractor did not do the required minimum amount of work on projects and essentially funneled money to Kiewit.

3A Industries was not named as a defendant in the cases, and Frye said he did nothing wrong.

Frye, whose company has been in the construction business for five years and has worked extensively with concrete girders, said he understands why Meeds is upset over losing a $1 million job.

But Frye said his intention was not to keep Meko Construction from reaching the big leagues of commercial construction. And, he points out, it was the city that disqualified Meeds, not him.

"He shouldn't feel hostile," Frye said. "This is just business."