The city council on Wednesday suspended Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett for three days for misconduct.
The vote came during an executive session of the council’s work session at City Hall.
Garrett confirmed the suspension to The Dispatch after the meeting, but she did not discuss on the record the alleged misconduct.
“It is true,” she said, adding only, “I did my job.”
Mayor Stephen Jones did not return calls or messages from The Dispatch about the suspension by press time.
The council is also considering an ordinance that will change its procurement process, substantially lowering its thresholds for work that would require sealed bids.
City Attorney Jeff Turnage proposed the change to the council at its meeting last week on the heels of former councilman Joseph Mickens’ indictment for money laundering and bid rigging, and Turnage brought it up again for discussion at Wednesday’s work session.
Per Mickens’ indictment, the former councilman and vice mayor conspired with a local HVAC contractor to procure flooring work at city buildings in exchange for promises of helping the contractor obtain city-funded HVAC jobs in the future. As part of the alleged scheme, Mickens allegedly told the HVAC contractor to bid exactly $18,000 for a flooring job at Townsend Community Center.
Under state law, contracts worth more than $75,000 require a sealed competitive bidding process, while purchases between $5,000 and $74,999 only require quotes that don’t have to be sealed or secret. Work less than $5,000 requires no competitive process, but state law allows local governments to lower that threshold.
Turnage’s draft ordinance would require a competitive bidding process for any public construction and non-professional services valued at least $1,000 and lower the threshold to $3,000 for commodities, printing and contracts for rentals.
If less than $75,000, vendors would still be required to submit their bid by sealed envelope or through a secure electronic bidding portal.
“The purpose of doing that is to stop the possibility of somebody inadvertently letting slip how much somebody else’s bid was and to secure the process so bidders know they are entering a competitive process and not one subject to being rigged,” Turnage said during the work session.
Ward 3 Councilman Rusty Greene pushed back on the idea initially. He said he supported implementing a secret bid process starting at $5,000, but lowering that threshold “causes a whole lot of problems.”
“If I’m having someone that I need to cut the side of the road, and I know he’s a good contractor, and he says, ‘I can do that for $3,000),’ now you’re forcing me to go get somebody that I don’t really want to do it (to bid),” Greene said. “I’m wasting their time, and they might come back and although it is lower, I can pretty much guarantee this (first) guy is going to do it right because I’ve worked with him and I know him. So I think it’s just adding more complications on something that small a scale.”
Mayor Stephen Jones’ response referenced the indictment indirectly.
“Well, you wouldn’t be getting any bids anyway,” he said. “That’s how we’re in trouble now.”
“I get that,” Greene replied. “My point was you’re wasting someone’s time … at that small a scale.”
“We don’t think it’s making it harder,” Jones said. “We think it’s making it fairer and people can’t go to jail.”
Nathan Katona, building department director, said he initially shared Greene’s concern. But he pointed to how specifically requirements will be written for jobs and the fact his department would permit and inspect the jobs before vendors are paid. Allowing bids by electronic portal will also help, Katona said, because it is unlikely very many vendors would submit sealed paper bids for such small jobs.
“If anybody agrees to it, they don’t have a choice in their quality of work because it has to abide by this standard and this standard,” Katona said. “Jeff and I work very hard on the requirements before we put it out to bid because we know that that shady contractor who just knows how to win a contract may be out there.”
Jones also pointed out the city could pick the “lowest and best bid,” by law, and not just the lowest.
“So it could be something that if you know that contractor is shady, we may not choose them because of that … like, if you’ve had a problem with them in the past,” he said.
The council did not vote on the matter at the work session, but Greene softened his position by the end of the discussion.
“I think that’s a good compromise,” he said. “Because quality of work means a whole lot.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.