Corman Construction wins $30M mall-restoration contract

By ELISHA SAUERS, Staff Writer
Published 08/24/10 in The Capital

In the blurry backdrops of photos from family trips to D.C., the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is nothing short of picturesque.

It was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream” civil-rights speech and has even landed in pop culture with a movie scene in “Forrest Gump.”

But the 2,000-foot stretch of placid water, set between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, is in dire need of repair. The pool is stagnant, full of filth and algae, and usually is surrounded by a ring of muddy shoe prints.

Reed Coble, estimator for Corman Construction Inc., sums up the problem simply.

“The reflecting pool is sinking, and it’s a hazard,” he said.

As of last week, Corman Construction, an Annapolis Junction-based business, was awarded a $30.7 million contract to save the reflecting pool.

It was the largest federal stimulus contract doled out through a host of National Mall restoration projects, according to the National Park Service.

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Awards will be presented at the 2011 MdQI Conference scheduled for February 2 & 3, 2011 at the Sheraton, Baltimore City Center.

The Senate August 5 passed 61-39 legislation that would provide funds to help states with Medicaid costs and pay teacher salaries.  The House approved similar legislation July 1.  Both measures include a $2.2 billion rescission of unobligated highway contract authority to help offset the costs of the Medicaid/teacher funds.  While current and future levels of core highway program investment would not be impacted by the rescission, sufficient levels of contract authority are necessary to ensure states have the ability to implement their transportation plans and meet their unique needs.  The ARTBA co-chaired Transportation Construction Coalition wrote to both the House and Senate opposing the rescission and pointed out the proposal injects further uncertainty into a transportation market where many states are facing their major budget challenges and the construction industry is suffering from 20 percent unemployment levels.

The House will temporarily return from its August recess this week to approve the Senate legislation.

Current law generally requires that a Form 1099 be filed for purchases of services over $600 during a calendar year – typically from small contractors and vendors. One of the mechanisms used to pay for the new federal health care law was an expansion of 1099 filing requirements to goods purchased, and purchases from corporations, starting in calendar year 2012. This new law will greatly increase administrative costs for businesses, result in hundreds of millions of new 1099s, and cause numerous other problems. Read More of MD Chamber of Commerce Legislative Alert…

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) spent part of Aug. 9 working with NSSGA member Knife River Corp. road construction crews in Bozeman and Belgrade, Mont.  With help from Knife River’s equipment operator Mike Reitano, Baucus operated a large grading machine in Bozeman that pushes a long pile of soil and large rocks flat with the rest of the unpaved surface.

“We’re a highway state and I want to learn all I can about our roads to make sure I’m doing what’s best by getting as many dollars as I possibly can for Montana,” Baucus said.  He is the chairman of the Senate Transportation subcommittee and was instrumental in writing the 1998 and 2005 Highway Bills and said he will continue to push for passage of the pending federal highway authorization bills, Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).

Finding increased funding for the bill has proved challenging, he said, since fewer drivers on the road means less money from federal fuel taxes.  Raising the gas tax would increase revenues, though Baucus acknowledged that increasing taxes is not politically feasible right now.  A new highway bill would provide “consistency and predictability” to government agencies and contractors, he said.
Baucus defended the Valley Center Road project as a perfect example of the Stimulus Bill creating jobs while improving infrastructure. When asked about recent headlines concerning millions of dollars of stimulus going to projects creating fractions of jobs or none at all, Baucus replied, “They still bolster the economy.”

NSSGA Chairman of the Board Bill Schneider, president and CEO, Knife River Corporation, Bismarck, N.D., testified on July 27 before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure regarding the status of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Schneider said if Congress does not act before the end of the year, the industry stands to lose the benefits of the stimulus.  He said, “There is a need for real jobs meeting real needs to provide American taxpayers real value.”

With one exception, there are no donor states when it comes to the current distribution of federal highway formula funds, a Government Accountability Office report found.

A study of states’ allocations from FY2005 through FY2008 showed that every state but one received as much back from the highway program as it contributed in federal highway excise taxes. The lone exception was Texas, which received 99.7 cents on the dollar. However, since 2007, even Texas has received more highway funding than it contributed in federal highway excise taxes.

“Since 2005, every state received as much or more funding for highway programs than they contributed to the Highway Account of the trust fund. This was possible because more funding was authorized and apportioned than was collected from the states, and the fund needed to be augmented with general revenues,” the GAO report reads.

“I have long believed that a federal surface-transportation program should focus less on the donor-and-donee debate and more on the needs of a national system,” says Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), who chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “The GAO report provides a consistent set of figures and a better understanding of how federal-aid highway funding is distributed among states. This report should help inform the discussion as we continue to work toward the next surface transportation authorization act.”

The report addresses this point further: “Using rate of return as a major factor in determining highway funding poses challenges to introducing a performance and accountability orientation into the highway program; rate-of-return calculations in effect override other considerations to yield a largely predetermined outcome–that of returning revenues to their state of origin.”

The event will be held at:

M&T Bank Stadium
Baltimore, MD 21230
on Thursday, August 19, 2010
from 11 am to 3 pm

For more information, visit the Recruit Military website.

or contact:

John McCahan – Army Veteran

john.mccahan@RecruitMilitary.com

513-677-7066 direct  513-237-4241 mobile

Matthew Allen
Winston Bain
Bruce Bangert
John Baumgardner
Brian Biddle
Gary Criswell
Janet Detore
Ganesh Dhakal
Earlington Dotson
Robert Evans
Art Gladstone
Dan Graham
Billy Green
Kathleen Gregory
James Hall
Arthur Harkleroad
Robert Hollis
Vincent Houchin
Clayton McCall
Philip Presley
Robert Pushman
John Rectanus
John Ritter
Duane Rohrer
Matt Storck
Jorge Torres
Warren Winker
Valentin Zapata

Government Employees

Joontae Ahn
Raymond Boissonneault
Duane Bozzell
Richard Graver
Joseph Shelton
Gregory Trusty
Robert Walsh

The joint venture team’s contract includes 11 bridge structures, 17 retaining walls, 4 sound walls and a comprehensive roadway package.  The project is nearing completion.

The U.S. transportation design and construction market in many states is terrible. Unem­ployment in our industry is over 20 percent and all indications are it could easily get worse in the months ahead due to lack of work. Many state departments of transportations are slowing plans for, or holding back, new work. But you already know that. You and your employees are living it.

And you know that the best thing that could be done to turn this situation around is for the Congress to enact a robust, multi-year highway and transit bill.

But the Congress is not doing its job!

Looking at the bigger picture, we must be concerned that the longer the reauthorization is delayed, the greater the chance that the Highway Trust Fund and the special “user pay-as-you-go” budgetary treatment that has provided unprecedented stability and growth for the transportation design and construction market sector could become artifacts of the past. Believe me, as you read this, there are very well placed people and organizations trying to make that happen for philosophical, political and competitive reasons.

We have already gone on the slippery slope of using General Fund revenues (i.e., deficit spending) to the tune of $36 billion over the past two years to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, which could be a first step in undermining the user pays principle. And without ad­ditional revenues, we are facing a 30-50 percent cut in the federal program as soon as 2012.

We need to make the highway/transit bill a congressional priority. We need to shake things in Washington up! And you and your employees hold the key to making that happen.

Here’s the plan:

At the May Transportation Construction Coalition Washington Fly-in, several members of Congress and key congressional staff were blunt about why the surface transportation bill has not moved yet—“Members of Congress aren’t hearing from your industry back in the states. They don’t feel any political pressure back home to get a bill done. They think the stimulus took care of transportation.”

For many in Congress, passing a robustly-funded, highway and transit bill will not be a congressional priority until they better understand the local ben­efits—and the local consequences to you and your firm—potential voters—if the reautho­rization is allowed to languish.

We couldn’t have gotten clearer directions on what needs to be done. That’s why I’m urging you to become part of unprecedented transpor­tation design and construction grassroots action program this summer. This being an election year, virtually all congressmen and senators will be back in their home district offices and the entire month of August and first week of September.

I am asking you to make a commitment to set up meetings with your congressman and two senators during this period and explain to them how federal trans­portation funding benefits your community and supports jobs. Tell them your story. Explain how the uncertainty caused by not having a multi-year bill impacts your business and business decisions—like hiring and equipment purchasing.

The recently-developed ARTBA Mobilize Grassroots Action Toolkit can be found on the homepage of www.artba.org.  It contains all the information you need to schedule and conduct successful meetings with your members of Congress.

The “ask” is simple. You want your congressman and senators commitment to you that they will:

• Tell their party leadership in the House and Senate REPEATEDLY to make passage of the overdue, multi-year surface transportation bill a 2010 PRIORITY.

• Keep an open mind on supporting any funding mechanism that is necessary to pass the robust bill needed to meet national needs and needs in your community.

• Vigorously oppose the Kerry-Lieberman energy/climate bill approach that would impose new fees on motor fuel at the refinery level for non-transportation investments like rebates to utility users for higher utility bills.

We will be compiling a list of all meeting results so we can refute claims from Capitol Hill that they are not hearing about the highway/transit program reauthorization from their constituents back home.

Share the details of your meeting with ARTBA’s Hank Webster at hwebster@artba.org.  If a member of Congress refuses to meet with you, we want to know that, too.

This is an election year. You have a power no Washington lobbyist has…you vote so your federal representatives will listen!

Let’s turn up the heat in every congressional district this summer and get the highway and transit bill done!

Thanks for your continued leadership and support.