Dismissal of Courthouse Suit Sought

Today, attorneys for the city of Fredericksburg will seek to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that city officials violated state procurement laws when it hired the consulting firm Arcadis to guide city leaders through the bidding process for a proposed new downtown court facility. 

The lawsuit, filed in Fredericksburg Circuit Court by local resident Hamilton Palmer in late July, charges that city officials broke the law when it hired Arcadis without issuing a formal request for proposals. Palmer is seeking a court order instructing city officials to stop violating state procurement laws.

But according to documents filed in response to the case by City Attorney Kathleen Dooley, the city's hiring of Arcadis is legal and Palmer's lawsuit is frivolous. Dooley argues that Palmer lacks standing to sue the city over this issue. Dooley also writes that Palmer's lawsuit does not clearly state a violation of the law, nor are the courts allowed to grant the legal remedy which he seeks. 

Dooley says that the city legally hired Arcadis using a process called cooperative procurement, which allows a locality to purchase goods and services under contracts already negotiated at the state or local government level. 

"If someone else just ran a process for, say, fill-in-the-blank, anything that someone might want to buy, then you don't have to reinvent the wheel," said Dooley in an interview last week. "It can actually make the process more competitive. If you think of it from a vendor's perspective, it cost them money to bid on contracts, if every locality runs that same process, then the vendors have to choose which one they want to compete in."

In hiring Arcadis, the city of Fredericksburg was piggybacking off of a contract already negotiated by the city of Alexandria for consulting on a number of upcoming architectural and engineering consulting needs. Alexandria used a competitive bid process to hire Arcadis, with a number of consultants entering the fray to win the contract. 

"Under the law, if the City of Fredericksburg needs that same service, we can call one of those successful firms and say we would like to buy that service from you under the same terms and conditions," said Dooley. "The state very much promotes this competitive procurement because it promotes competition."

Arcadis, in its work for the city of Fredericksburg, has produced a confidential report which evaluates proposals for a new city court facility. The project is expected to cost around $30 million. The price tag has motivated some city activists, most notably former City Councilor Matt Kelly, to question the project's necessity.