D.C. to rethink paver’s penalty in bribe scam

The D.C. Council yesterday voted to overhaul the way city government suspends contractors, a move that could pay big dividends for a road-paving company that pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to bribe local officials.

Two dissenting colleagues said the legislation was aimed at rescuing Fort Myer Construction, a District-based company that pleaded guilty in federal court in March to conspiring to bribe city engineers and public works inspectors.

The legislation mandates a panel of D.C. government executives to reconsider actions against city contractors, including a three-year debarment against Fort Myer handed down in April by the D.C. Office of Contracting and Procurement.

“We have discussed and debated this matter exhaustively and the bottom line is that we are not changing the debarment,” said council member Harold Brazil, at-large Democrat, who sponsored the legislation. “We’re attempting to change the process from an unfair one to a fair one.”

Fort Myer, one of the largest street-construction firms in the metropolitan region, holds more than $60 million in ongoing road projects throughout the District.

Federal prosecutors said Fort Myer employees between July 1997 and January 1998 drove trucks loaded with asphalt onto scales twice or thrice to make it appear as if the company was using different trucks.

Nine D.C. engineers and inspectors were fired and two Fort Myer employees lost their jobs as a result of the investigation, which federal authorities dubbed Operation Hot Mix.

The suspension would have prevented Fort Myer from competing for contracts in the District for three years. D.C. officials now will review that action because of the council’s decision yesterday.

Mr. Brazil called the debarment process unfair and said agency directors and other government officials should have been included in the decision. Under the old rules, the Office of Contracting and Procurement alone decided whether a company should be suspended.

“We did not get Fort Myer off the hook,” said council member Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat. “We created a new review process.”

Although Fort Myer is barred from competing for federal contracts, Mr. Mendelson said, both the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the city of Arlington continue to do business with the company. Officials from Arlington and WASA were not immediately available for comment yesterday.

“We need to look at whether the company is presently acting responsibly, and I don’t think that was taken into consideration when the company was debarred,” Mr. Mendelson said.

Council member Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, disagreed. “We have a company that defrauded the District of Columbia,” Mrs. Schwartz said in a recent letter to her council colleagues. “The Council responded by rushing in to aid that company.”

Council member Kathleen Patterson, Ward 3 Democrat, cast the only other dissenting vote. “I didn’t agree with taking that action,” Mrs. Patterson said last week, “especially given the District’s track record of not being tough enough on contractors.”

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