Associated Press
three years
ago by the Native village corporation of
The dispute lies in whether
Tanadgusix Corp. bought the surplus Navy dry dock with the promise that it
would move the dock to
The General Services Administration
said Tanadgusix officials deceived the agency and the
company
planned all along to keep it in
"It's just a big scam,"
said Bill Clifford, chief executive of Honolulu-based Pacific Shipyards
International, which competes with
the dry dock and which filed a lawsuit last year alleging
that
Tanadgusix and Marisco Ltd., a Hawaii-based ship repair company, conspired to
make false
statements
to obtain the dry dock. "They knew it had to be used in the state of
The GSA has proposed to bar a
Tanadgusix subsidiary from federal contracting work because of
the alleged
fraud.
Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, inserted
language in the House version of a national highway bill
that calls
for terminating all lawsuits related to the dry dock.
On the Senate side, Sen. Ted Stevens,
R-Alaska, says he is trying to find a compromise that
would send
the dry dock to
This month, a conference committee of
House and Senate members will begin writing a final
version of
the bill. The committee will decide whether Young's language stays or goes.
Tom Schlosser, attorney for
Tanadgusix, said the GSA debarment is misguided and would destroy the company.
Tanadgusix earns about 50 percent of its revenue from government contracts to clean
up oil spills and military bombing ranges.
Tanadgusix's
shareholders are the Native residents of
remote
The Native company is the main
economic enterprise on
remote
island, it has invested elsewhere to create revenue and jobs. The company
acquired the
The floating dock, the length of
almost two football fields, was built in 1944 and required
significant
cleanup and repairs.
Tanadgusix Chief Executive Ron
Philemonoff signed a "transfer document" that promised the
corporation
would not "sell, trade, lease, lend, bail, cannibalize, encumber or
otherwise
dispose of
the property, or remove it permanently for use outside the state."
He also wrote a letter of intent to
the
behalf of
GSA, saying the company planned to put the dry dock to use immediately.
He attached a letter from Marisco
that Philemonoff said would rehabilitate the dry dock so it
could be
"safely transported any long distances."
Neither the transfer agreement nor
the letter mentions anything about moving the dry dock to
Schlosser said that's because
Tanadgusix never planned to do so and never tried to dupe anyone
into
thinking otherwise.
"It was perfectly clear to GSA's
officers," Schlosser said. "
the shipping
lanes."
The reference in the letter to safely
transporting the dry dock over a long distance did not
mean it was
to be moved from
marine
operations.
"I drafted the phrase
'transported long distances' ... with the intent of keeping TDX's future
options for
using the (dry dock)," Kennedy said.
U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline of
Tanadgusix had violated its transfer
agreement with the federal government by keeping the dry
dock in
Tanadgusix appealed the decision and
a three-judge panel heard arguments in the case last week
in
In a separate case, the Justice
Department is seeking $15 million in damages from Tanadgusix
under the
False Claims Act. The department alleges that Tanadgusix signed an agreement
with
Marisco several months before
obtaining the dry dock from the GSA, a violation of the transfer
document.
Philemonoff said Tanadgusix was never
convinced GSA's policy would require the dry dock to be moved.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, wrote
to the Senate chairman of the highway bill conference
committee in
late April objecting to Young's proposed solution.
"Aside from undermining and
interfering with ongoing legal proceedings, (the House language)
establishes
bad legislative precedent that undermines the respect for the rule of law in
our
legislative
and legal system," Inouye said.