BALTIMORE (Map, News) - The state Board of Public Works responded to strong complaints about discrimination against minority contractors by the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore by setting up a state work group to look at opening up the hospital’s bidding process.

But the board still approved giving a $6.3 million contract to Whiting-Turner Construction Co. for managing construction of new surgical suites on the seventh floor of the Weinberg building, the third phase of a renovation project there.

Arnold Jolivet, president of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association, which had protested the contract, said he was still unhappy that the board failed “to send a message” by rejecting the grant to the university hospital, which he accused of “illegal, unlawful, discriminatory practices.”

“This agency refuses to do business with African-American businesses,” Jolivet said. 

The work group was the suggestion of Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, who was chairing the board because Gov. Martin O’Malley was in Washington.

“We’re very receptive to that suggestion,” said University of Maryland Medical System Vice President Mark Wasserman.

The other two board members, Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Comptroller Peter Franchot, approved the contract, which includes 25 percent participation by minority subcontractors. But they expressed concern about the failure to advertise the bid process.

Rick Dunning, the medical center’s vice president for facilities, said the hospital had directly contacted six contractors with expertise in renovating hospital facilities, but did not advertise the job. Three contractors chose to bid on the process.

Jolivet has been fighting the hospital about its contracting for over four years, including lawsuits in state and federal court. The legislature set up the University of Maryland Medical System as an independent corporation in 1984, but Jolivet insists that for many purposes it operates like an arm of state government, and should abide by the laws that govern state agencies, including the Public Information Act.

The attorney general issued an opinion earlier this year that the university medical system was an instrumentality of state government and a federal judge found the same in one of Jolivet’s lawsuits.

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com