The Pine Bluff City Council will consider legislation at its Monday, May 1, meeting to formally waive competitive bidding for the contractors who began demolishing Garland Trice’s condemned building at 620 Main Street on April 19. The council meets at 5:30 p.m. at Pine Bluff City Hall.
Cities are bound by state law to solicit competitive bids for contracts. However, city officials argued that the precarious state of Trice’s building left no time for that process. According to an ordinance up for consideration at the meeting, falling debris from the building on April 11 caused Fire Chief Shauwn Howell to declare an emergency. Mayor Shirley Washington then “ascertained that the public’s health, safety, and welfare was threatened and the need for immediate action precluded use of regular procurement procedures.”
Washington signed contracts on April 18 on behalf of the city with Wagner Construction, Inc. to demolish and dispose of the building, and with North Little Rock-based Snyder Environmental and Construction to oversee cleanup of any asbestos-contaminated debris in the building. An ordinance up for first reading Monday states “that the council finds that requiring competitive bidding would 16 have unnecessarily compromised the public health, safety, and welfare of the city… [and that] due to the existing emergency, it was imperative that the Mayor deviate from the established procurement procedures.”
The council will also hear a second reading of an ordinance to close a portion of Pryce Street between Dollarway Road and Womack Street, as well as a portion of a 10-foot alley extending west of Pryce Street extended. The ordinance is sponsored by Alderman Glen Brown, Jr. Another ordinance under consideration would establish two positions within the Police Department. One would be titled “Research/Quality 14 Assurance Coordinator” and the other “Juvenile Court Detention Liaison and Assistant Community 15 Service Director.”
The following appointments are also up for consideration: Arthur Simmons to the Pine Bluff Crime Commission; Tina Owens, Rodney W. Holcomb and Harold Clark to the Pine Bluff Parks Commission; and Latasha Woods and Jeanetta Jones to the Pine Bluff Planning Commission.