December 29, 2010 Millennium Bidding Postponed Again

The Millennium Square Project Bidding has been postponed again. The new bid date is tentatively February 1, 2011. Click here, here, and here for recent posts.

The original bid date was December 14, 2010.  However, on December 10, 2010, TDOT cancelled that bid date based on questions raised by contractors and information provided to TDOT by Councilman Gene Brooks about conflicts of interest and other contract-related issues. These issues still have to be addressed.

At about the same time, the architectural firm Brewer, Ingram & Fuller set a new bid date of 1/4/11.

Now, the Architects have set yet another new bid date of February 1, 2011, ostensibly at the request of the City of Morristown in order to work out contract-related items with TDOT (Tennessee Department of Transportation) and "others."

The conflicts and webs of relationships in this project are about as extensive as they can be. The Millennium Square owners are Tim and David Wild, James and Mira Craine, Tom Jones, Hiram Jones, Sid Boyd, and Bill Young. 

In addition, the Craines and the Joneses are principals in the city's auditing firm Craine, Thompson & Jones. The Wilds are also principals in Wild Building Contractors. Millennium Square Partners/Craine Thompson & Jones/Wild Building Contractors are tightly knit.

Now the Craines and Joneses and Wilds not only want the city's ($890,000-$1,200,000) grant money for improvements to their Millennium property, they also want the Wilds to be able to take off their Millennium Owner hat and put on their Wild Building Contractors hat and bid to perform the actual construction work. 

[Originally Millennium Partners/Wild Building Contractors wanted Wild to be "given" the contract for the construction work without any bidding. The plan was to have Wild designated as a "sole source" provider for the  construction  work. That plan didn't go very far, however, because construction work of this kind is NOT any type of specialty work that only Wild can do.

Had the attempt to pursue a "sole source" designation  for Wild been successful, it was designed to enable the City to "select" Wild as contractor without any competitive bidding and keep the project and all the grant money in the Millennium Partners' hands.]

Apparently getting lots of free improvements of  $890,000+ or - to their property and access to public parking that the Millennium employees could use is not enough for the Craines, Joneses, and Wilds.