114 Board of Public Works

Although DOT had made an in-house estimate of the number of people and man-
hours it would take to perform the construction management services, it did not advise
the bidders of that estimate or include it in the request for proposal. Rather, it asked
the bidders to develop their own estimates of what would be required and to base their
bids on those respective estimates. Thus, although the general scope of the work was
defined, there was a great deal of flexibility in the DOT request. To some extent that
is what caused the problem. The five proposals received by DOT on 14 June 1976
varied widely, as they were based on different estimates of the number of man-hours
required to do the job.

DOT reviewed the five proposals in accordance with evaluation criteria it had
previously established and ultimately recommended to its PSSB the firm of Ralph M.
Parsons, a national consortium based in California, which it believed had submitted
the best proposal. Unfortunately, the Parsons bid, at $25 million, appeared to be about
$7 million more than that submitted by a consortium that included a local firm, Bal-
timore Contractors, purportedly having extensive "political connections." The PSSB
approved the DOT recommendation, and thus the Parsons firm was recommended to
the Board of Public Works.

The matter was first formally presented to the board on 12 November 1976 and
immediately ran into trouble. The board questioned the price disparity and asked for
more information; DOT insisted that the Parsons proposal was the best one and that
the price disparity was more apparent than real.⁵⁰ For seven months the issue lay
unresolved, with DOT refusing to reconsider its recommendaton and the board refusing
to approve the Parsons proposal. Charges and countercharges of favoritism were ban-
died about both publicly and privately. The press generally sided with Hughes, viewing
the matter in the context of an attempt by Baltimore Contractors to exert political
influence on the board and subvert the selection process. Parsons, not without some
influence of its own, enlisted the aid of two influential U.S. senators and, through
them, the federal Urban Mass Transit Administration, which, as the principal fin-
ancier of the project, also had something to say about the matter.

The affair came to a head in May 1977. On 2 March the board had by unanimous
vote formally disapproved the Parsons contract. A week later the board directed that
the selection process begin again on an emergency basis. With construction scheduled
to commence in July and no prospect of resolving the impasse, Hughes resigned as
secretary of transportation on 26 May 1977, maintaining in his letter of resignation
that the board was, in effect, tampering with the selection process.⁵¹ With the governor
already under federal indictment for other alleged misfeasance and the press viewing
the Hughes resignation as an act of conscience, the board was under extreme pressure
to back off and approve the Parsons proposal as submitted.

The board continued to demur, however, perhaps partly because its own integrity
was on the line, but also because it simply was not satisfied with the Parsons sub-
mission. Once a replacement was named for Hughes, the board considered whether
DOT could get along without a construction manager. When the new secretary, Her-
man Intemann, advised that in light of the imminence of construction activity that
was not possible, the board undertook to renegotiate with Parsons.⁵²