Posted on September 19, 2016
By Andrew Parent, ShoreNewsToday
City Council authorized several agreements for outside help when it met Thursday, Sept. 8 in City Hall.
Officials hired law firm Parker McCay to represent the city in a bid dispute with Wickberg Marine Contracting of Belford, according to city solicitor Dottie McCrosson.
The contract states that the city will pay $225 per hour to the firm’s attorneys and $200 an hour to associates for the firm’s counsel throughout the case.
The firm will bill the city each month, according to a letter from the firm included with the Sept. 8 meeting agenda.
Wickberg Marine had submitted the lowest bid for a job to remove 150,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils from Site 83, Ocean City’s disposal site on the back bay near the Roosevelt Boulevard bridge.
Instead, the city awarded the job to the second-lowest bidder, Mount Construction Co. of Berlin, for $7.8 million. The city skipped over Wickberg because the contractor allegedly did not provide adequate proof that it successfully completed three similar projects in the last five years, according to documents from council’s July 28 meeting, when it approved Mount’s contract.
Wickberg also had a violation issued earlier this year during the last project it did for the city. The company built an earthen pier without the proper permits while working to remove 50,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils from Site 83, according to city and federal officials. Wickberg had removed about 32,000 cubic yards before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the work stopped.
Source: ShoreNewsToday
