Firm could face ban over College St. project

City committee says work on sidewalk beautification merits three-year freeze

A Brampton-based construction firm should be banned from bidding on City of Toronto contracts for three years, a city committee is telling council.

City staff had said Four Seasons Site Development’s work on a delay-riddled College St. sidewalk beautification project was problematic enough to warrant the rare and serious penalty. The city, which is managing the $3.45-million reconstruction effort for the local merchants’ group that initiated and funded it, fired Four Seasons from the project which stretched from Havelock to Shaw Sts. last fall.

The Star had chronicled merchants’ anguish at plummeting revenues as customers navigated trenches and a maze of fencing, or simply gave up, and Four Seasons fell behind the four-month schedule for both sides of College St.

The company fell short, city staff allege in a report, on contract management, work performance, responsiveness to issues, minimization of disruptions to the public and public safety.

Four Seasons chief executive Rohit Bansal told councillors on government management committee Monday that his company did nothing wrong.

Any fault lies, he said, with city inspectors who did little to address problems, merchants who were sometimes abusive to his workers and pedestrians who frequently dismantled safety barriers. The discov- ery of a buried diesel tank, and ensuing environmental concerns, delayed the work, he added.

“We are a proud, committed workforce of many Toronto residents, a family of immigrant workers who work hard and make the city their home,” Bansal told council, adding he was speaking for120 workers. The bulk of their work, he later told reporters, comes from City of Toronto contracts.

Julia Rapp said revenues for her business, Rapp Optical, plummeted between 30 and 40 per cent last July and August thanks to prolonged construction mess that made it treacherous or impossible to enter her shop.

A three-year ban is the “least” council can impose, she told reporters. “Ideally we would hope that they would be barred on city contracts entirely.”

“If you do business with the City of Toronto and you bid on a contract, then you are legally obligated to fulfil the contract to the best of your ability.” PAUL AINSLIE COMMITTEE CHAIR

Councillor Pam McConnell suggested a compromise — a two-year ban with a third year of probation where Four Seasons could bid on contracts up to $1.5 million — but the committee opted for the tougher penalty.

Committee chair Paul Ainslie, a Scarborough councillor, said he is confident council will send a strong message, as it is doing with an ongoing auditor general probe, to compa- nies that do a total of $1billion in city construction.

“If you do business with the City of Toronto and you bid on a contract, then you are legally obligated to fulfil the contract to the best of your ability,” he said.

During Monday’s meeting it was revealed Four Seasons had just won a legal victory against the city, convincing a Superior Court judge that the city’s chief purchasing official exceeded his powers in February when he decreed a temporary six-month bidding ban.

That decision allows Four Seasons to bid now on tens of millions of dollars in pending city construction work, but would not prevent city council from imposing a ban at its May 24 meeting.

Bansal declined to say if he would challenge any council-imposed ban in court.