EASTON, Pa. — Northampton County Council introduced a measure Thursday night to loosen restrictions on county contractors by removing requirements for apprenticeship programs and OSHA training, in what its author describes as an attempt to make existing requirements less discriminatory and to draw more bids on county contracts.
- Northampton County Council introduced a measure that would remove certain requirements for companies based in the Lehigh Valley to bid on Northampton County contracts, drawing a rebuke from County Executive Lamont McClure
- Commissioner John Goffredo, the measure’s author, said the existing requirements for contractors to discriminate against nonunion companies and cut down on the pool of potential contractors
- The proposed amendment will receive a public hearing Sept. 7
The measure, proposed by Commissioner John Goffredo, amends the county’s Responsible Contractor Ordinance.
Goffredo said it’s chiefly a way to increase the number of bids that come in on county projects; he has long been critical of county projects that move forward after receiving only one bid from one company to do the work.
The amendment would only exclude those contractors from the previously existing restrictions whose offices are in Lehigh or Northampton counties.
"Why am I excluded? Because of the pro-union administration pushing for only union contractors?"Northampton County Commissioner John Goffredo
He also said the current responsible contracting policy discriminates against nonunion construction companies by requiring bidders to host apprenticeship programs for the trades they hire, which he called “a hallmark of union contractors.”
“I work in this county. I pay taxes in this county. My company pays taxes in this county,” said Goffredo, who works for Nu Cor Management, a construction and contracting firm. “Why am I excluded? Because of the pro-union administration pushing for only union contractors?”
Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure began his comments about the amendment at Thursday’s meeting by wondering aloud the measure’s purpose, when the responsible contractor ordinance “has been working very well.”
He went on to challenge most of Goffredo’s claims.
He said that a greater portion of projects have received more than one bid since the responsible contractor ordinance was enacted in 2018, and that nonunion shops still have apprenticeship programs, like the one created by the Association of Building Contractors, which represents nonunion companies.
McClure also said the county took the question of whether the policy is discriminatory to federal court, and that the court found it was not.
Goffredo replied that he “won't say” the existing measure amounts to illegal discrimination, but that it is “in bad taste.”
McClure said, come next month's public hearing on the proposed amendment, he intends to present evidence to the council “in full.”
