With allegations and innuendo flying left and right about plagiarism, backroom vote-rigging and undue political influence on what’s supposed to be an apolitical selection process, the controversy surrounding the selection of an architect for the $21 million downtown library is nearing a boiling point. There’s even talk now of an ongoing FBI investigation.
Trahan Architects principal Trey Trahan claims he lost the contract on May 19 because information meant to paint him as a plagiarist was circulated among members of the selection committee prior to the final vote. Trahan was the leading vote getter in the first round of voting by the selection committee on April 28.
Trahan’s attorney, Gray Sexton, says he’s learned the information amounted to a rendering by a Netherlands firm for the Czech Republic National Library and was said to bear a resemblance to Trahan’s conceptual design for the downtown library. The rendering was given to Parish Architect Jim Frey by local architects Trula Remson and Jerry Hebert, Sexton says. For a side-by-side look at the designs, click here. (Trahan’s rendering is on the left).
Both architects’ firms had submitted proposals for the library contract. Hebert’s firm had already been eliminated by May 19, and Remson’s firm was ranked behind Trahan in the top three firms being considered. The contract was ultimately awarded to a joint venture by WHLC Architecture of Baton Rouge and Boston-based Schwartz/Silver Architects.
Remson is on vacation this week, according to her voicemail, and has not responded to a request for comment via e-mail. Hebert adamantly denies providing Frey with any such information and says his name should not even be entering the controversy. “I want to be 100% clear here,” Hebert says. “I did not give Jim Frey any information. He called me to discuss another project and brought this up to me. He knew about this before we ever talked, and our conversation about it lasted about two seconds. It was a very brief and general conversation, and when he asked me about it, we had already been eliminated by the selection committee. So, for (Sexton) to try to tie me into this thing is total BS.”
Sexton says it was Frey’s attorney who told him Remson and Hebert were responsible for the giving the information to Frey. Frey and Parish Engineer Jim Ferguson, who Sexton says gave DVD copies of the Netherlands rendering in a side-by-side comparison with Trahan’s design to some members of the selection committee, are both referring questions to the parish attorney’s office.
The parish attorney’s office has conducted an investigation and found there was no wrongdoing by the selection committee. Though the investigation found two of the nine members on the committee did in fact see the renderings, according to Senior Special Assistant Bob Abbott, the parish attorney’s office concluded it didn’t have any effect on the final vote.
“Regardless of what (Parish Attorney) Ms. (Mary) Roper might think, the inescapable fact is that Trahan Architects went from being in first place on April 28th to last place on May 19th,” Sexton says, “and the only intervening event that anyone has ever called to our attention was the provision by Mr. Ferguson of making copies of the DVD for selected members of the selection committee. It’s presumed that votes were changed as a result thereof.”
Voting records by the selection committee show two members were absent for the final round of voting: One had earlier voted for Trahan and one did not. A third member who voted in the final round for a firm other than Trahan’s was not present for the first round vote.
East Baton Rouge Parish Library Director David Farrar has placed an item on the library board’s regular meeting agenda tonight to “remove the River Center Branch library construction project from the current construction schedule.” The meeting starts at 4 p.m. at the BREC headquarters building on Florida Boulevard.
This story has been corrected since it was first published.
