Council member and labor leader Shields wants big, sealed-bid contracts somehow to go to local firms

Council member Justin Shields, a longtime local labor leader, repeated last night that he will continue to oppose giving large city construction contracts to companies “outside this area.”

Shields' comments came in response to a bid discussion on a project to fix flood damage at the Police Department. Earlier in the day, local union members staged a protest of a contractors' meeting in Cedar Rapids to make the same case for hiring local.

In a competitive battle for the Police Department job, 11 contractors submitted sealed bids. Four are from Cedar Rapids, one from Iowa City and one from Belle Plaine with an office in Cedar Rapids. Contractors from Des Moines, Dubuque, Burlington and Fort Dodge also bid.

The council will award the bid in the next couple of weeks, but the apparent low bidder is Knutson Construction Services Midwest Inc. of Iowa City, which submitted a bid of $1.921 million for the project. The apparent second lowest bidder is Woodruff Construction LLC of Fort Dodge with a bid of $1.929 million with Kleiman Construction of Cedar Rapids, at $1.98 million, and Miron Construction of Cedar Rapids, at $2.002 million, coming in third and four places.

With the list of bidders in front of him, Shields said he couldn't understand how a city so devastated by last year's flood could continue to “send all our dollars outside of this area.”

He said the he wouldn't support the awarding of contracts to companies from “Fort Dodge and Minnesota,” and he said his council colleagues should not either.

Council member Tom Podzimek, who owns a small construction company with council member Pat Shey, dismissed Shields' suggestion and said the bids on the Police Department were competitively bid as set out in state law. He asked City Attorney Jim Flitz to provide the council with a memorandum spelling out the law. Shields said he wanted Flitz help the council “look options.”