City to ban contractors who take too long on construction projects

Posted on January 29th, 2023

City construction has been the cause to several businesses losing sales over the years.

Old Highway 90's family-owned business, Chelita's Mexican Restaurant says construction has diminished their to-go line and minimized parking.

"Creating a lot of problems for you to try and grow your business," says Loyea Rangel, daughter of Chelita's owner Herminio Rangel. The Rangel's describe the constant traffic that cut their to-go line and made getting to their restaurant even more difficult.

"About $2,000 a week in to-go loss," says Rangel on the how much the construction has impacted a source of their sales.

Due to consistent business loss like Chelita's, District 6 Councilwoman Melissa Cabello-Havrda began working on an ordinance two years ago to protect communities and businesses from delayed construction.

"It's not quality work or they're not responsive or they're not meeting the contract requirements, well we don't get to hire them again, we don't have to hire them again," Councilwoman says of the new ordinance that was passed on Thursday, the Responsible Bidders Ordinance.

She says in the past, the city was obligated to move forward with the lowest bidder contractor. The new ordinance will weed out the poor quality contractors. In hopes of avoiding the 'Construction versus Business' battle we've seen in other parts of town.

"This doesn't necessarily help them today," says Havrda, "but this is something that will hopefully preempt problems in the future."

So what's a penalty for the contractors who are not living up to the city's standards and expectations?

Councilwoman Cabello-Havrda says the contractor will lose work with the city. Now, they must wait three years before getting to bid on another project.

The Rangel's are hoping construction on Old Highway 90 finishes up real soon, "of course people here have still made it work they still park here or across the street or wherever, but it's still an inconvenience regardless for customers, ya know we don't want that for our customers."

The Responsible Bidders Ordinance went into effect on Thursday, with approval by other councilmembers like District 1 Mario Bravo who has dealt with construction chaos on the St. Mary's strip, he says this ordinance is a step in the right direction.

Source: here.