Judge expected to OK city minority-business plan.

He'll likely back L.A. spurning bids without explanation

A federal court judge has indicated he will uphold Los Angeles' minority-business hiring program and the city's authority to reject bids for municipal projects on undisclosed grounds, according to an assistant city attorney.

The attorney, Pedro Echeverria, said the expected dismissal of a lawsuit by Judge Harry Hupp will be another affirmation of the city's procedures for awarding contracts for municipal projects. He said there have been several challenges to the municipality's bidding regulations and they have all been decided in the city's favor.

Specifically, the dismissal would uphold Mayor Tom Bradley's 1989 executive order that sets out requirements for minority representation among city contractors and subcontractors. In addition, the U.S. District Court action would uphold a city department's right to reject bids for projects without formally stating a reason.

Neither Judge Hupp's office nor the court clerk would confirm that the suit will be dismissed but Echeverria said the city attorney's office has been told the judge will reject the action.

A spokeswoman for the company that brought the lawsuit, Sepulveda-based Vomar Products Inc., also said the judge has indicated that he will dismiss the action. She said that if it is dismissed, the company would probably appeal.

Attornies for Vomar did not return phone calls for comment.

The suit was begun earlier this year after the Los Angeles Department of Airports rejected all the bids submitted by four companies for signage work at Los Angeles International Airport. The project had an estimated cost of $2.5 million and the lowest bid was submitted by Vomar at $1.7 million. The highest of the four bids was $2.4 million by a company called Federal Sign.

The board of airport commissioners said at a July 31 meeting that "it is in the best interest of the city to reject all bids and to advertise for new bids."

According to Vomar, the board had earlier indicated the bids be "disqualified due to lack of good faith effort in complying with the (city's) 'minority business enterprise' program."

Shortly after the bids were rejected, Vomar sued Bradley, the City Council and Department of Airports, challenging the MBE program and the airport board's right to reject bids without stating a specific reason for the dismissal.

The city responded to the suit with a motion for dismissal, asserting the Los Angeles City Charter allows the mayor to issue executive orders and gives city departments the right to reject bids for no reason.

In papers filed with the court opposing the motion to dismiss the case, Vomar stated:

"It should be noted that the lawsuit herein is not an attack by male bigots on a well-founded and carefully conceived program designed to protect minorities -- it is an attack on intentional and blatant racial politics engaged in by Los Angeles city officials which are impinging the constitutional rights of plaintiff. . . . Plaintiff (Vomar) at all times maintains that plaintiff did in fact make a good faith effort to comply with defendants' (city) MBE program despite its unconstitutionality."

Vomar claims the MBE plan is an "unconstitutional race-based program."

Vomar's director of new business development, Lisa Cypers, described the company as an electronics firm that employs about 75 people and has annual sales of about $5.5 million. Vomar's founder, president and chief executive officer is Paul Van Ostrand, said Cypers. She said between 60 percent and 70 percent of the company's employees are Hispanic.

Bradley's executive order does not establish a quota system of using minority contractors on city projects. The order does require that potential prime contractors make a "good faith effort" to seek out minority-operated businesses as subcontractors on a city project.

The minority program includes a companion plan for women-operated businesses and includes a requirement that contractors prove that they sought out minority businesses as potential subcontractors.

Echeverria, the assistant city attorney, said the intent of the order "was to open up the process of bidding on city contracts to more companies, to spread the work around to include more minority-owned and women-owned businesses. It was not intended to set a quota but, by opening up the process, more minorities would automatically be included."

He said all of the bidders failed to prove that they had made "good faith" efforts to seek out minority-operated businesses for subcontracting work on the airport project.

If the lawsuit is dismissed as expected, the Department of Airports will be allowed to readvertise for bids for the project. If there is an appeal, however, the department will probably have to wait until after a decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals.