Background: The Economy Store: The Davis-Bacon Act---and YOU

Today, January 3, 2006, prinicpals of the project known as "The Economy Store", more commonly known as the restoration of the Old Ace building, will be meeting---city officals, financial consultants, developers, attorneys etc. The topic of discussion will be the financial plan for the project. Last night at the Planning Commission meeting at City Hall, the site plans for the project were shown. Audio of this portion of the meeting will be posted shortly.

One of the concerns developing out of the recent Redevelopment meeting was whether the Economy Store project would comply with the requirements of the Department of Commerce Grant Award of $280,000, one of which was concerning fair labor practices. The details of the labor requirements are more commonly referred to as the "Davis-Bacon Act" and you can review this by clicking on the post.

The Economy Store project is one for "Improvements" or restortion of a building. The project was never for the purchase of the building. Considering that much of the labor agreements for the project have been determined already, one of the creative ways of avoiding the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act would be to use the money for the purchase of the building-----money used for purchase of property is not covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, since no labor is involved. So---an interesting way to use the money itself to defeat the requirments of the law itself. A samauri-lawyer move so to speak.

Will this move work? Will all the details of the Economy Store project be worked out today?

Stay tuned.