Another No-Bid Contract: The Mall’s Reflecting Pool

Last month, we posted about the no-bid contract given to the event planning company hired for the President’s rally on January 6, 2021. That company has now been awarded an additional $13 million in government contracts, often in no-bid contexts. Today, we have another story, also brought to us by David A. Fahrenthold, this time with Luke Broadwater, both of The New York Times.

This time, the President wants the Reflecting Pool in the District of Columbia Mall to be painted blue for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. People treat July 4th as though it were the birthdate of the United States, but we know better. The signing of the Declaration marked an important sequence of events, but avenues of communication being what the were in 1776, the signing itself was not one. The War of Independence had already been raging for months before the Declaration was signed. July 4th did not become an official U.S. holiday until 1870. The date of the ratification of the Constitution would have made a better birthdate, but that was a messy affair. June 21st, the date of the ninth ratification, bringing the Constitution into effect, would have been a nice birthdate, but that might have been awkward for the four states that had not yet joined the union. March 4 might make sense, as the anniversary of the government coming into being with the first Congress, or we could go with May 29th, when Rhode Island became the last then-existing state to vote to ratify.

But this administration is not one for nuance, historical or otherwise, except of course when it is trying to convince us that a sow’s ear is a silk purse, or that the war in Iran is something other than a war.

In any case, the President wants to celebrate the 250th Anniversary of the United States on July 4th of this year, and for that purpose, he wants the Reflecting Pool looking its best. To that end, according to The Times, the President offered a no-bid $6.9 million contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, based in New Canton, Virginia, a company the President claimed to have used to do pool work at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia. The Times could not even verify that claim, as Atlantic’s website does not boast about its experience working with the President. In fact, the website does not mention pool work at all, instead touting the firm’s experience in waterproofing highway culverts, pipes, roofs and chemical and water storage tanks. 

As we discussed in the last post on no-bid contracts, the government can enter into no-bid contracts when the matter is urgent. However, according to The Times, the government cannot create its own emergencies. Even it could, sprucing up the pool for a birthday party is not urgent, and the President’s plan for doing so is unlikely to succeed.

Apparently, the President originally claimed that the repairs would cost $1.8 million. However, the $6.9 million price tag has also come into question, with the Park Service quoting a price of $12 million. Apparently, the shortfall will be addressed with fees paid by visitors to our national parks. Yes, just like we were going to make Mexico pay for the wall, we can make those nature-loving Canadians pay for the Reflecting Pool. Except that Canadian travel to the U.S. is significantly down, according to Forbes. Whatever the cost, the repairs will be worthwhile, as the President predicted that they would last fifty years. Experts say more like seven-to-ten.

The Park Service’s number still seems low. The Obama administration spent over $35 million trying to address the Reflecting Pool’s algae problems without success. Atlantic’s strategy involves painting the pool basin blue, which experts say will have no effect on the algae problem. One of the pool’s problems is leaky joints, which were newly repaired and may well have been newly damaged when the President decided to drive his motorcade over the drained pool for a photo opportunity.

A three-pronged solution to the problem was developed during the first Trump Administration, but it stalled in the Biden Administration when the bids came in at over $100 million. The Park Service has instead opted for annual draining and cleaning. Or you could just paint it.

As with many of the President’s other projects, this one was not presented to for review by the Commission of Fine Arts, the federal agency that usually reviews designs for federal buildings, monuments and memorials. The Times identifies some other projects that the President has undertaken without review, including paving the White House Rose Garden, erecting a 13-foot statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds, and tearing down the East Wing of the White House.

This week David A. Fahrenthold updated his reporting, this time with Maxine Joselow. The latest from The New York Times contains a retraction from the President. He no longer claims to have selected the Atlantic Industrial Coatings in a no-bid contract. The President claims that the Interior Department awarded the contract to the company with which, the President now says, he has never had prior dealings. That may well be true, and it is convenient for the President, as the project is over budget and behind schedule.

It is also odd. Here is what the President said at an April 23rd meeting with the Press in the Oval Office: “I have a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools. He looked at it. He called me up. He said, ‘Sir, we can do something on it.’”

In retrospect, that conversation sounds made up, and that’s fine for this administration which likes narratives more than it likes reality. People protesting the President like to say “Make 1984 fiction again,” but we could add “Make Felix Krull fiction again.” Too obscure? Well, Thomas Mann wrote an entire novel about a confidence man who eliminates the line separating appearance and reality (Schein and Sein), and now we are living it every day. The President fabricates. He’s done so since his first inauguration when the rain magically stopped when he started speaking, and the crowds broke records. He fantasizes that he won elections that he lost, that he won squeakers by a landslide, and that an attempted insurrection was a day of love.

But the President need not be wed to his fictions. If the contractors can’t do the work, well, the President has no idea who they are. He didn’t hire them, and perhaps some heads should roll at the agency that hired them. Or maybe not. It’s a small story, and the President has an endless supply of whoppers for the media to chew on in the upcoming news cycle..