Jonetta Rose Barras: Wasting millions in the District, part 2

As I predicted, Tompkins Builders, a District company trying to save the city $4.8 million on the construction of a proposed forensics laboratory, filed a complaint last week with the contract appeals board. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s administration seems intent on selecting Whiting-Turner of Baltimore as the contractor, regardless of the cost to taxpayers.

“The District’s justification for awarding the contract to the higher-priced offeror is irrational and unreasonable,” Tompkins Builders wrote in its complaint filed last Monday, the same day I wrote in this space about the growing controversy.