Over chair’s concerns, purchasing board awards contract for sealing vacant buildings to low bidder — a company owned by mayor’s friend.

By VINAYA SAKSENA

CENTRAL FALLS — Despite the concerns of its chairman, the Central Falls Purchasing Board has decided to award a contract for boarding up foreclosed buildings to a company that was already performing the work on an emergency basis.

At its meeting this week, the board decided by a 4-1 vote to grant the work to Intercity Maintenance, Inc. of Providence. The company is listed as having an address of 15 Clarkson St. in Providence, the same address as Certified Disaster Restoration Corporation, which had been performing the work previously.
Both companies also identify Michael Bouthillette, a longtime friend of Mayor Charles Moreau, as their president. In previous interviews, Moreau has readily admitted that Bouthillette is a longtime friend of his who has also contributed to his political campaigns. It had been alleged that the boarding could be done for considerably less money that what Certified Disaster Restoration Corporation had been doing it for, but both Moreau and Purchasing Board Chairman Bob Ferri said that Bouthillette’s company had come in with the lowest qualifying bid.
Ferri, however, said he had a concern about this week’s vote to award the contract to Intercity, stemming from Moreau’s previous statements about the board’s involvement in the decision to let Bouthillette’s company begin the work on an emergency basis.
Specifically, Ferri said, Moreau had asked the board about the possibility of having the company board up a small number of foreclosed homes that needed immediate attention, but that the board did not give him permission to do so on an indefinite basis.
“I figured, ‘so be it, he has emergency powers,’” Ferri said of allowing the mayor to go ahead with the arrangement on a temporary basis. “Nobody said anything further. Over time, I noticed more and more houses being boarded up. It seemed like there was a lot more than a few houses being boarded up.”
Moreau disputed Ferri’s account of their discussion, saying that it should have been obvious based on circumstances throughout the city that more than “a few” houses needed to be boarded up in the first place. He added that he had also specifically told the board members that they should speak to City Solicitor John Gannon if they had any doubts about the matter.
“That’s a misunderstanding on Mr. Ferri’s part,” Moreau said. “It’s very obvious that there were more than one or two. I know Mr. Ferri never went to the (solicitor’s office). The others (on the board) may have. I don’t know.”
Ferri said he had hoped to table the decision on to award the contract until more information could be obtained, saying that he would have liked to ask questions of Bouthillette, who was not present at the meeting. He noted that his concerns were not a reflection on Bouthillette, and did not have to do with how or why the he was awarded the work. His main concern, he said, was clarifying what the board had previously told the mayor when he first inquired about the boarding work.
“I have no objection to how he (Bouthilette) got that bid,” Ferri said. “But I wanted to clear the air on that point of it. I would assume (Moreau) checked with someone. It’s not our purview to check.”
Moreau maintained that getting the work done quickly was important for public safety reasons, specifically to prevent, squatting, infestation and theft of copper piping and other items from foreclosed homes, which he said had often been left with doors open. He added that banks were often slow to choose realtors for foreclosed properties — often taking several weeks to do so — as many of them were headquartered far from Rhode Island, a problem he said was often complicated by lack of accurate, up-to-date title information on the properties. As for the boarding process, he said the work done by Bouthilette’s company would be paid for after the properties would be paid for via liens on the properties, and not by citizens.
“Zero cost to the taxpayers,” Moreau said. “We’re actually making money on it. It’s always been above board. The program is working like a charm — much better than I thought.”
According to a memo previously issued by Gannon, the bids placed for the work were as follows: $4,367.25 per house from J. Holland Renovations; $3,638.95 from Intercity; $3,056.20 from A.M. Construction, Inc., $2,446.50 from Alpha Construction Company and $19,600 from Freeport General Contracting, Inc. Alpha was disqualified early on for submitting a bond check for $250, rather than the $5,000 bond required of all bidders by the city. City Clerk Marie Twohey, who is also the city’s purchasing agent, noted that A.M. Construction had also since been disqualified. Twohey said that the award letters for the work had not yet been sent out, but would probably be sent in the next week.