Architectural Conflicts: The City Reviewed and Evaluated BIF's Architectural Proposal and the City Knew that Wild Building Contractors Wanted To Do the Construction...Did the City Question BIF or Mention This To TDOT

While red flags were all over the place, no one wanted to look at the apparent conflicts of interest. It was through a public records request that a clear conflict of interest and a much too cozy relationship between the architect BIF and Wild Building Contractors (WBC) was discovered. Of course, there was a further conflict in that David and Tim Wild, who are principals in WBC, are also members of the Millennium Square Partners.

This is straight from BIF's Letter of Interest submitted to the City in July 2010:

If you remember, Wild Building Contractors first wanted the construction project given to them--no bidding--as a sole source contract. TDOT said "no." 

Then Wild asked about being able to "bid" on the project.  Hansen told Morgan that WBC could bid "as long as they do not retain any inside information."

Well, guess what, WBC had all the information (inside and outside) on Millennium.

They were proposed to be and were in fact acting as an Estimating Consultant to the Architect BIF.

Four individuals associated with the City, including Alan Hartman and Todd Morgan, reviewed the BIF letter of interest in evaluating the BIF proposal, but it appears that no one from the City said anything to TDOT about WBC being listed as an estimating consultant to BIF while also seeking to bid on the project.

Inside information? As consultants to the Architect, David and Tim Wild had all the information (inside and outside) on the Millennium project and they were making property decisions and many design decisions. As members of the Millennium Square Partners, they had all the information (inside and outside) on the Millennium Square Partners group: its finances, its budget for this project, and the MSP-City contract for reimbursing the City for BIF invoices.

The public's access to public records is vital. Without that access, the Millennium project with its conflicts and cover-ups would have proceeded--conflicts and all--because the City and BIF, both of whom knew about the many conflicts of interest, just wanted to ignore and cover them up. TDOT was sitting in Nashville and simply accepting what it was told.  And local citizens who fight against conflicts of interest and push for accountability were being attacked in the tried-and-true tactic of "blame the messenger." 

With public records being used by Councilmember Gene Brooks and citizens to expose Millennium conflicts, the City Council adopted an official "public records policy." 

While many local governments charge citizens for copies of public records, the City's policy charged councilmembers for copies of "non-routine" that exceeded 50 sheets of paper in a month. 

Not surprisingly, City Administrator Tony Cox decided that documents related to the $1.2 Million dollar Millennium grant project were "non-routine."  Cox began charging Councilmember Brooks under the new policy.