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Too much sand costs plenty, while sisters’ paving company racks up contracts

Above: Cidalia Luis-Akbar (left), co-owner with sister Natalia Luis, of M. Luis Construction, winner of $9 million in city paving contracts.

Too much sand ordered for the Montebello water treatment plants has resulted in the city paying $348,938 to RK Hydro-Vac of Piqua, Ohio.

The settlement – compensating the company for fixed costs associated with storing and handling the excess sand – was one of about 25 major spending items approved by the Baltimore Board of Estimates at its August 10 meeting.

The Brew, on vacation last week, has reviewed the board’s actions to keep readers informed of how the city spends taxpayer money.

Details of the sand contract were not provided in the agenda and remain sketchy. The company won the contract last January after beating out more than 20 other suppliers.

In an email to The Brew yesterday, Rudolph S. Chow, chief of the bureau of water and wastewater, said the city “only took delivery of what we needed at the Montebello plant” and the extra quantity was stored by RK Hydro-Vac.

The company complained that, stuck with the sand, it incurred “overhead charges for the undelivered quantities” and demanded reimbursement. Chow did not respond to questions about the overall cost of filter sand, which is used to purify city drinking water.

$9 Million to M. Luis Construction

In other news, M. Luis Construction Co. solidified its recent dominance of city paving contracts by winning $9,196,153 as lowest bidder of three separate repaving contracts approved by the Board of Estimates.

The company is currently repaving Harford Road between North Ave. and Chesterfield Ave. under a $4.9 million contract.

Baltimore-based M. Luis is owned by sisters Cidalia Luis-Akbar and Natalia Luis, daughters of company founder Manuel Luis, a Portuguese immigrant. The company has grown exponentially in recent years, winning pavement contracts in Prince George’s, Montgomery, Howard and Baltimore counties as well as Baltimore city.

M. Luis also won a $920,400 contract to reconstruct “footways citywide,” according to board records. Luis was the lowest bidder on another $929,424 footways contract awarded earlier this year.

Three “disadvantaged business enterprises” (DBEs) will share in the pavement contracts – Fallsway Construction, Rowen Concrete and P&J Contracting.

Other Spending Items

The five-member spending board – which includes Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young and City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt – also approved the following items:

a $700,000 loan to Senator Theatre LLC, controlled by James Cusack and his daughter, Kathleen Cusack, owners of the Charles Theatre, to upgrade and expand the historic movie house on York Road. The Cusacks are further seeking $450,000 in federal and state historic tax credits, a $500,000 state loan and a $100,000 state community legacy grant to repair and refurbish the movie house.

The Cusacks, who purchased the property from the city, who reclaimed it from longtime owner Tom Kiefaber, plan to open a restaurant, four movie theaters and crepe shop at the site as well as replace the seats, carpets, wall coverings and curtains in the main auditorium. They propose putting up $400,000 of their own money to help finance the $2.15 million restoration.

They will be required to pay interest for the first nine months of the city loan, then monthly principal and interest payments for 20 years at 2% interest. If they reach certain targets for restoring the theater, the city will forgive $100,000 of its loan.

up to $1.5 million, shared by three engineering firms, to provide “on-call consultant services for reconstruction, rehabilitation and/or resurfacing” of roads by the city Department of Transportation. The firms are KCI Technologies, McCormick Taylor Inc., and Sabra, Wang & Associates.

In 2008, these firms were awarded $2 million each, over three years, to provide engineering design services to DOT. In 2009, the three firms shared an additional $1.5 million to permit “continuing design services.” In 2010, McCormick Taylor received a further $500,000.

The latest award “will permit the completion of various ongoing design tasks” by the companies, with the exact tasks to be determined by DOT officials. As a result, total costs under these contracts are not to exceed $3 million for KCI Technologies and Sabra, Wang – and $3.5 million for McCormick Taylor.

$4 million to Digicon Corp. for “citywide network and systems support” administered by the Mayor’s Office of Information Technology. This grant comes on top of $11,561,033 made to Digicon Corp., an IT service provider based in Herndon, Va., under a 2006 city contract with renewals.

$1,030,286 to the Baltimore Development Corp. to demolish existing property along Liberty Heights Blvd. and Gwynn Oak Ave. to prepare land for a proposed 67,000-square-foot grocery story at Howard Park. Another $134,875 was approved to help relocate the Sportsman’s Lounge at 4733 Gwynn Oak Ave.

$142,355 in fresh funds for a $3.5 million contract for emergency design and construction of the city’s water metering facilities at the Sparrows Point steel mill. The new funds will go to KCI Technologies, whose Sparrows Point contract will be extended from March 2012 to March 2013.

• a $600,000 addition to a 2010 award of $382,748 to Data Unlimited International Inc., of Gaithersburg, for software and technical support for the Baltimore Police Department. The board agreed that this procurement “is of such a nature that no advantage will result in seeking, nor would it be practical to obtain, competitive bids.”

• a $134,205 extra work order for the design of the Sinclair Lane Bridge over CSX Railroad by AECOM Technical Services. The original design contract of $505,057 has increased to $1,060,462 through nine extra-work orders. The heavily deteriorated bridge itself will be mostly paid by CSX under a 2007 agreement with the city.

$201,128 to Wallace, Montgomery & Associates to develop plans and specifications to rebuild deteriorated manholes at various city locations.

• a $370,000 increase to a $1.1 million award to M&T Bank in 2008 for payroll services and online payment transfer services for the Finance Department and Bureau of Revenue Collection.

$1.12 million to Heritage Automotive and $800,000 to Valley Chevrolet to supply “parts and service” to city agencies. This contract is an unbid addition to a $2 million contract awarded in 2008 to five local car dealers to supply parts and service.

$290,000 to Quality Automotive Warehouse and $136,000 to Rok Brothers to supply “aftermarket parts and supplies” for lights trucks and cars used by city agencies.

$240,000 to Charles F. Wellford to review “quality of life” arrests made by Baltimore police as part of a $870,000 settlement between the city and the NAACP and ACLU stemming from the “Zero Tolerance” policies of former Mayor Martin O’Malley. Wellford is a criminology professor at the University of Maryland.

$209,372 to Rummel, Klepper & Kahl to provide project management for four city water projects, and $134,851 for on-call instrumentation and inspection for two other water contracts.

• $48,306 to Anne Clewell Graphic Design to “typeset city comprehensive annual financial report by the Department of Finance.”

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