By Meredith Canales
Staff Writer

With the most expensive construction project in Helotes’ history at stake, some of the town’s aldermen were nervous about the terms of a contract under discussion at a special meeting called Oct. 27.

The project in question is a $4.5 deal with Middleman Construction Co. to build and design the Helotes police and fire buildings.

“I know that the architects are already doing some preliminary stuff for us,” said Helotes Mayor Tom Schoolcraft, opening the meeting.

“You have to go with a guy with a proven track record. He knows we’re in a hurry. I’m not saying we’re going to cut corners to get it done quickly, but we’re going to get it done as quickly as we can,” Schoolcraft added.

However, Alderman Rich Whitehead had concerns over some of the more particular parts of the contract.

“It’s our responsibility here to set the guidelines under which he operates. If we want to design and engineer and break ground in a few months, then we need to state that. Otherwise, it could go for an undetermined amount of time, and we need to be careful,” he said.

Because of language in the contract, Whitehead said even if the job wasn’t done, significant money would have to go to the company.

“If for some reason he drags his feet, and … six months later he’s handing us a bunch of bills, according to this contract, if we terminate him, we are obligated to pay him everything he has in his costs plus ten percent,” he said.

Fellow alderman Jeff Ellis agreed that there should be some accountability but wondered if the concern about timelines was coming too soon.

“I don’t know if you can (instill accountability) with this instrument because we talk about the contract, and we talk about the timelines, but we don’t have a project,” he said. “I would be leery to take on a project from someone who said we want you to do this building and this is how much we’ll spend and we need it done in nine months, but you have no clue as to how much detail this is. I don’t know if I would go into that.”

City Administrator Rick Schroder said that, while he understood Whitehead’s concerns, there were legal terms built into the contract to handle scheduling.

“When we drafted this, we changed it slightly to say that the design-build contractor produces the construction schedule for initial owner review and acceptance. We actually utilized the word acceptance because that has a legal connotation much greater than approval. At the time when they actually give that schedule, that’s when this body will be able to (say how long they have),” he said.

During the course of the meeting, Whitehead brought up the additional concern of retainage.

“There’s no paragraph here for retainage. All commercial construction projects I’ve been involved with over the last 10 years, 100 percent of them have had 10 percent retainage,” he said.

Schoolcraft quickly jumped in, refuting Whitehead’s suggestion.

“It’s done every day without retainage. You’re talking about government contractors, but you probably have better than half the projects done on a design-build basis that don’t have it,” he said. “It all comes down to (the fact that) he’s getting cost plus 10 percent, so if you take 10 percent retainage, it means he’s working without any profit until completion. I know I wouldn’t go for it.”

Alderman Edward Villanueva agreed with Schoolcraft.

“If I sent a contract to someone to do in the oil field, they don’t get paid a dime until it’s done. I don’t play around with retainage. It’s all or nothing,” he said.

After going over the contract and airing their concerns, the council agreed to add a sentence to excuse delay for anything that would impair working conditions on the site and two pay conditions that would have the company waiting on monthly payments until council approves them.