A lawsuit Huntington Park filed on October 23 asks a court to trace more than $9 million the city paid toward a planned aquatics center and recover any funds that remain. JT Construction was hired to build the 30,000-square-foot facility, but the project has not yielded the promised center; the site remains an empty lot.
The city’s complaint seeks to establish what happened to the project payments and recover any funds left over, according to Whittier Daily News.
Huntington Park first contracted with JT Construction in 2019 to build the aquatics center, initially valued at $23 million, with plans for a two-story facility featuring an Olympic-size pool.
Advance Payments and a Contested Bid
By September 2020, Huntington Park had already paid JT Construction $8.6 million, representing 35% of the total project cost at the time. The Construction Industry Force Account Council, which represents contractors and labor unions and monitors compliance with public contracting codes, challenged the city’s no-bid selection of JT Construction from the start…