What Omar Narvaez didn’t say

Before we get to a conflict of interest—and I mean that generally, not as the city defines it in its ethics policy—involving millions of dollars, you need some context. Buckle up. This is a journey. Yesterday, the Dallas City Council spent over an hour debating a procurement contract that the runner-up in the bidding process had appealed. The Parks Department and a third-party design consultant had deemed that the second-place finisher did not have the qualifications to do the job for which it was applying. The City Attorney’s Office had found that the process had met the city’s legal standards. But the company in question, Gadberry Construction, had bid about $750,000 below the bid of the company that had won the project, the Fain Group. Dustin Gadberry, the owner and operator of lower bidder, had appealed this decision, arguing that the lowest bid should have won the contract. The city said, no, it’s actually the lowest responsible bid, and Gadberry didn’t provide enough evidence that it could pull off the job.

Still with me? The turn is up ahead. Three council members spoke in support of delaying the approval of the Fain Group’s bid and reviewing whether the city’s request for bid was up to snuff. Those in favor of delay were District 14’s Paul Ridley, who represents the district where the project is located and pulled the item from the consent agenda for discussion; District 2’s Jesse Moreno, who represents the neighboring Medical District; and District 6’s Omar Narvaez, just over the river in West Dallas. Ridley wanted to ensure that Gadberry had enough information to understand what the city was looking for. He told me after the vote, “I was not satisfied that the bid instructions containing the qualifications of bidders was specific about the amount of experience and type of experience that were minimum requirements for submitting a bid.” Basically, Ridley wanted to make sure Gadberry had a fair shake. The City Attorney’s Office said Gadberry did. Gadberry says he didn’t and that he could save the city $750,000. Ridley wanted to give the City Attorney’s Office two weeks to make sure everything was buttoned up. One thing went unsaid during this debate: Gadberry has been Narvaez’s campaign treasurer since he first ran for council, in 2016, and at no time during the discussion did Narvaez reveal this fact. Narvaez spoke passionately about delaying the matter and even gave up some of his allotted speaking time so that Gadberry could address the Council directly.