Baz Ares
Gold Member
- Feb 2, 2017
- 10,970
- 1,091
OMAHA, Neb. — A tiny Nebraska startup awarded the first border wall construction project under President Donald Trump is the offshoot of a construction firm that was sued repeatedly for failing to pay subcontractors and accused in a 2016 government audit of shady billing practices.
SWF Constructors, which lists just one employee in its Omaha office, won the $11 million federal contract in November as part of a project to replace a little more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of a current fence with post-style barriers 30 feet (9.1 meters) high in Calexico, California. The project represents a sliver of the president’s plan that was central to his presidential campaign promise for a wall at the border with Mexico.
It remains unclear why SWF was listed on the bid for the wall contract instead of Edgewood, New York-based Coastal Environmental Group, which online government documents list as its owner.
Thomas Anderson, an Omaha lawyer who initially represented a subcontractor that sued Coastal in 2011, said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was an attempt to dodge scrutiny of past legal problems. He says such a practice is relatively common in construction projects.
In 2011, the federal government sued Coastal on behalf of Anderson’s client as part of a multimillion-dollar lead cleanup project at an EPA Superfund site in northeast Omaha. The lawsuit accused Coastal of failing to pay the subcontractor, Enviroworks Inc., nearly $400,000 in labor and equipment costs and of reneging on a profit sharing agreement that cheated the subcontractor out of about $1.7 million.
“If you kick up a little dust on the trail, it makes the trail harder to follow,” Anderson said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...eecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.70a7276754ad
Like the 2 or was that 3 very small Puerto Rico scam companies hired last year worked out great.
We get another Shady Contractor. Really, award contracts but we need betters here.
SWF Constructors, which lists just one employee in its Omaha office, won the $11 million federal contract in November as part of a project to replace a little more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of a current fence with post-style barriers 30 feet (9.1 meters) high in Calexico, California. The project represents a sliver of the president’s plan that was central to his presidential campaign promise for a wall at the border with Mexico.
It remains unclear why SWF was listed on the bid for the wall contract instead of Edgewood, New York-based Coastal Environmental Group, which online government documents list as its owner.
Thomas Anderson, an Omaha lawyer who initially represented a subcontractor that sued Coastal in 2011, said he wouldn’t be surprised if it was an attempt to dodge scrutiny of past legal problems. He says such a practice is relatively common in construction projects.
In 2011, the federal government sued Coastal on behalf of Anderson’s client as part of a multimillion-dollar lead cleanup project at an EPA Superfund site in northeast Omaha. The lawsuit accused Coastal of failing to pay the subcontractor, Enviroworks Inc., nearly $400,000 in labor and equipment costs and of reneging on a profit sharing agreement that cheated the subcontractor out of about $1.7 million.
“If you kick up a little dust on the trail, it makes the trail harder to follow,” Anderson said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...eecfa8741b6_story.html?utm_term=.70a7276754ad
Like the 2 or was that 3 very small Puerto Rico scam companies hired last year worked out great.
We get another Shady Contractor. Really, award contracts but we need betters here.