Federal court upholds Northborough decision
By Ken Powers Contributing Writer

Northborough - Maybe, just maybe, the twice-delayed library project will now proceed.

The latest hurdle was removed last week when a U.S. Federal Appeals Court upheld an earlier court ruling that refused to grant a preliminary injunc- tion to prevent the town from going forward with the Northborough Free Library expansion and renovation project.

"When the court system upholds your actions, it reaffirms your resolve that you were doing the right thing," Northborough Town Administrator Barry Brenner said. "Everyone involved in the project is excited to see it move forward."

The Federal Appeals Court made its decision Sept. 28 and notified the town Oct. 1.

Barr Inc., a construction company from Putnam, Conn., took the town to court in July alleging that Northborough had violated the public bidding law that states a town must select the lowest bid from a "responsible bidder."

Barr's bid of $5.56 million was $213,000 lower than the bid submitted by Souliere & Zepka of Adams, the company to which Northborough awarded the contract.

The town, led by legal counsel as well as Brenner and Assistant Town Administrator John Coderre, eliminated Barr as a bidder due to its performance on eight other jobs in the state.

Barr appealed the town's decision not to offer it the contract in the First Federal District Court in Worcester, asking for a temporary restraining order. The appeal was denied July 11 on the basis that the suit would, in all likelihood, not get decided in Barr's favor. Barr appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston.

Barr claimed in its federal appeal that a "hostile labor union" was the source of the negative reviews. Barr made this claim, the court documents said, because it hired non-union workers for its jobs.

Barr also claimed in its federal appeal that the town stepped outside its authority when it checked the company's background with towns it had previously worked on that weren't on the Division of Capital Asset Management

DCAM) Certification it filed as part of its bid.

The town's conclusions "were illegal based on biased information the unions submitted outside the statutory process," the complaint said.

In addition, Northborough "used flawed legal standards, improperly and incompletely evaluating Barr" and the town "never performed the numerical evaluation process the statutory regulatory processes require," the complaint stated.

The appeals panel of Chief Justice Michale Boudin and Judges Juan Torruela and Jeffrey Howard took exception with Barr's arguments in the appeal.

"After consideration of the parties' arguments, we are persuaded that Barr's interpretation of the Massachusetts bidding law is incorrect," the decision read. "Constraints on an awarding authority's ability to independently investigate a bidder's qualifications as severe as Barr advocates would put much information of great practical relevance out of reach."