Pinnacle Construction Group has filed a lawsuit regarding yesterday’s decision by the Polk County Board of Supervisors to award a public project to the third-lowest bidder.

In a lawsuit filed yesterday afternoon in Polk County District Court against Polk County by Pinnacle and its president, Shane Madison, the plaintiffs call the decision “arbitrary” and claim that Pinnacle was the “lowest responsive, responsible bidder” for the renovation of a building at 1907 Carpenter Ave., which has been slated to become the county’s Emergency Operations Center.

Pinnacle’s bid for the project was $2,693,000. A bid by Hansen Cos. Inc., which was awarded the project on a 3-2 vote, came in at $2,833,000.

“We believe what they did today was illegal,” Madison said Tuesday, adding that the board’s basis for denying Pinnacle the award is an assertion that the contractor is unqualified.

The three “yes” votes awarding Hansen the project were cast by Democrats Angela Connolly, Tom Hockensmith and John Mauro. The two Republican supervisors, E.J. Giovannetti and Robert Brownwell, voted no.

Madison contends the board’s decision reflects a bias for union contractors.

“Pinnacle is not a union contractor; the contractor they awarded it to is,” Madison said. “We don’t feel like we are unqualified to do a simple renovation of the building.”

Madison, who references in the lawsuit several ongoing and completed Pinnacle projects that he contends have been successful, said the county is using the fact that Pinnacle doesn’t have a Department of Labor-approved apprentice program as its basis for denial.

“Let me be clear,” Madison said. “It wasn’t a requirement to bid (for the project), it wasn’t a requirement to be selected, it was just a question (on the Contractor Qualification Questionnaire) and we answered that question as ‘no.'”

Madison said one of Pinnacle’s current projects, an expansion of the Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority’s (DART) bus facility at 1100 Dart Way, was approved by DART earlier this year.

He said Pinnacle was also the low bidder on that $1.5 million project.

Connolly, the Polk County Board of Supervisors 2009 chair, also chairs DART’s board.

“But all of a sudden on this Polk County project we became unqualified,” Madison said. “It’s unfathomable to me that if you have a bid that comes in – a low bid, a responsive bid – in these economic times, that they can really say we are going to spend another $140,000 to throw our bid out so they can award it to who they want to.”

“In my opinion,” Madison continued, “I think those supervisors were under a lot of pressure from their constituents not to give Pinnacle the bid. Keep in mind that 2010 is an election year for all three of those Democrats,” he said.

Assistant Polk County Attorney Michael O’Meara, the Board of Supervisors’ legal counsel, returned a phone call to Connolly by the Business Record seeking comment.

“Consistent with the Iowa Supreme Court, our office will not be making any comment on pending litigation, other than that the county will be filing responsive pleadings denying the plaintiffs’ claims and vigorously defending the county’s interest,” he said.

Madison said an amendment to the lawsuit is in the works and could be filed as early as today.