Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Denise Owens denied a motion for a temporary restraining order against the Jackson Public School District this afternoon. Jackson business Integrated Management Services PA filed the order yesterday, trying to halt a Monday JPS board meeting. The board is likely to choose an IMS competitor to manage its $150 million bond at that meeting.
"Having heard arguments on the matter and all premises considered, the court finds that the motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction is not well taken and the relief requested shall be denied," Owens wrote in her May 18 decision.
The JPS board voted in April to begin negotiations with California-based Jacobs Engineering and local business Preferred Management for program management of the recently passed $150 million bond.
IMS attorney Adam Stone said his client wanted the board to reconsider its preliminary decision favoring Jacobs and Preferred, but IMS needed more time to gather facts. IMS wanted the board to release information regarding the competition's bid proposal and to delay the board's next meeting until IMS had time to request and review the information to buttress its argument.
"In particular, we want information that's not proprietary regarding minority participation and local participation," Stone said, explaining that IMS wanted to see information that Jacobs Engineering had sealed by court order in April.
School board request for bid proposals demand that companies competing for the program managing contract allow local businesses to do at least 50 percent of the work. The district also requires a minimum number of minority contractors. To fit proposal demands, Jacobs Engineering is partnering with Preferred Management and local minority business owners like Socrates Garrett of Garrett Enterprises.
Stone said his client has "strong suspicions about what portions of the RFP Preferred Manangmenet Group LLC was supposed to fit," explaining that IMS questions how much local and minority participation Preferred Management would really bring.
"I have suspicions why their proposal doesn't meet specific requirements, but I can't show that because I don't have the information," Stone said.
Owens based her decision, in part, on the fact that IMS did not object when Jacobs' redacted information back in April.
"The Court takes notice that IMS failed to intervene as a party to this civil action," Owens wrote.
IMS CEO and founder John Calhoun argued that Jacobs is an out-of-state company and should rightfully take second billing to his more locally-owned business. He also asserted that Preferred Business Management was created recently for the sole purpose of helping Jacobs qualify for the JPS contract. JPS submitted its RFP in December, months ahead of Preferred Management's March 26 inception date.
"Would you want a three-month old company handling millions of dollars worth of work? I wouldn't," Calhoun said.
Attorney David Watkins, who represents the board, described the IMS argument as "a case of a disgruntled losing vendor unhappy with a discretionary decision by the local school board attempting to have a court force its wishes on the board."
The restraining order would "virtually shut down the $150 million bond program," he said. "Without this decision, JPS can't proceed with hiring architects and structuring the bond program. The delays would impact funding, hiring, construction bond costs, interest rates, raise construction costs ... irreparable harm--simply because they don't agree with a discretionary decision by the school board."
Watkins also argued that a restraining order was improper at this time. "IMS can appeal a board decision to circuit court once the board makes its decision, but the board has not even made its final decision yet," he said.
Attorney Sam Begley, who is representing Jacobs Engineering and Preferred Management, called IMS' efforts to get a restraining order "a stalling tactic."
"What they really want, your honor, is to delay the (board's) vote in anticipation of the change in the composition of the board," Begley said.
Begley was referring to an attachment in his rebuttal containing an April JFP article reporting that Chief of Staff Marcus Ward had threatened to pull JPS Board Vice President Jonathan Larkin's name if he did not support IMS in the board's April vote. Ward denies that allegation.
Larkin voted in favor of IMS' competitors in April. Shortly after, Mayor Frank Melton sent a memo to council members asking them to withdraw Larkin's name for consideration for re-nomination.
"They anticipate a change in the board that will favor their client," Begley said. "That's what all this is really about."
Calhoun told the JFP in April that the mayor had a right to pick board members who want to favor local vendors, and maintains that the board should boot Jacobs and hire IMS if they intend to follow through with promises to contract locally.
Begley accused Calhoun of omitting key information.
"IMS isn't the sole company in on their bid. They entered into a joint bid with Parson's, out of California. Truth is, no local company could manage a $150 million bond proposal," Begley said.
Larkin said that the board will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, its regularly scheduled time.
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