Contractor protests county's planned authorizations for community center construction; county attorney defends process

A local contractor urged Suwannee County commissioners to remove three agenda items tied to design-build community center awards, saying the county's planned authorizations would violate Florida competitive procurement law. County Attorney Chris Morrison told the board he had reviewed the process and saw no statutory violations; the board later approved the consent agenda that included the disputed items by a 5-0 vote.

Luke McGinnis, identifying his company as LMC and saying he has bid county projects for 15 years, told commissioners he was asking that items 16 through 18 be pulled from the agenda. "It appears that you intend ... to willfully violate Florida Statutory Law by voting tonight in favor of authorizing a contract without due process and proper consideration of the other respondents for the community center proposals," McGinnis said, citing Florida statutes and arguing the county had not conducted required discussions with the top three respondents.

McGinnis told the board there was "no final contract available to approve," no price, no plans or specifications and, in his view, the county would be authorizing a contractor without the required competitive process. He cited the competitive-selection statute and said it requires the agency conducting a design-build to "enter into discussions with the top 3" respondents.

County Attorney Chris Morrison responded that he was "unaware of any illegalities in the process used" and said the solicitations had included substantial contract and material terms. "Contrary to what Mr. McGinnis said ... these were all ... bound by the design the solicitations, and each of those solicitations said what the price was going to be because they were design-build contracts," Morrison said, and he invited any protest be filed through the county's protest process.

Other public commenters also raised transparency concerns about bid evaluations and asked for more public access to scoring materials. The board discussed the consent agenda; after pulling a small number of items for separate votes, the board approved the remaining consent items, which included the community center items, by unanimous vote. The clerk recorded the vote as "Motion carries 5 to 0." No formal protest was filed at the meeting and no contract was executed at the meeting.

The transcript records the disagreement in public comment and Morrison's immediate rebuttal; commissioners did not vote to remove the agenda items and instead proceeded to approve the consent agenda that contained the disputed items. Morrison noted the county has a formal protest process and encouraged McGinnis to pursue it if he believed statutory requirements were unmet.