TRURO — Cape Cod Builders, without the town’s permission, demolished a cottage in early October instead of renovating it for use as employee housing as the firm’s contract required.

Thomas Pappas, the construction company’s longtime president, defended the demolition in a phone interview with the Independent on Oct. 28: “I think I did everybody a favor,” Pappas said.

“There was a lot of white mold and black mold when we took the sheetrock off the walls,” he said. Even without the mold, the cottage was out of square, according to Pappas, and wouldn’t fit properly on its newly poured foundation.

According to Dept. of Public Works Director Jarrod Cabral, the Bourne company has already been paid $449,000. The balance to complete the renovation work was $712,684. But now there is no house to renovate.

At a special meeting of the select board to discuss the unauthorized demolition on Oct. 17, Cabral said that Cape Cod Builders had committed to rebuilding the house for the balance of the contract, but the board did not respond to that offer, instead determining to discuss the contract and legalities at a later executive session.

One major concern is the effect of the demolition on the $900,000 state grant paying for the project. “We are still in discussion with the state on the grant,” said Town Administrator Darrin Tangeman in an email Tuesday. “I expect it to be resolved in the next one to two weeks.”

Cape Cod Builders has a history of lawsuits. Over the last 10 years, the company has filed several Superior Court complaints against municipalities in Plymouth, Barnstable, and Dukes counties, as well as several bid protests with the state attorney general’s office.

While Pappas has not mentioned any plan to take Truro to court, he told the Independent he believes his company should be allowed to complete the project, building a new house to replace the cottage.

“I’m not afraid to go to court, and I’m not afraid to fight the attorney general,” Pappas said. “And I don’t always lose.”

A review of a decade of court records reveals that Pappas is correct. Often, towns have prevailed, although they still end up shouldering legal costs and enduring project delays as a result of the suits.

In the Courts

Springfield is currently embroiled in a court battle with Pappas over a roof and chimney repair project at the Barney Carriage House. The city had required that an existing chimney be demolished and replaced with a fiberglass replica as part of the work. Cape Cod Builders, as lowest bidder, was selected for the project in late spring but then argued with the city over the fiberglass replica.

“We are not doing the fiberglass chimney without a fight,” Pappas wrote in an email to the city. “Please explain why you want to murder this artifact?” The town argued that the building was not in a historic district nor did it carry a historic designation.

The drawn-out debate prompted the city to rescind its contract offer on July 16, 2024 based on the company’s unwillingness to comply with its terms. Cape Cod Builders then filed a complaint in Barnstable Superior Court in late August, and Springfield filed a counterclaim with both sides seeking damages. The case has since moved to Hampden Superior Court at Springfield’s request.

In 2017, Cape Cod Builders took Edgartown to court for awarding a contract to restore and repair the town’s Memorial Wharf to Trademark Services, a Vineyard Haven company that bid $249,000 to do the work.

While the Cape Cod Builders bid was higher, the company argued that Trademark Services had not been certified by the Div. of Capital Asset Management & Maintenance, and its bid should therefore have been disqualified.

Construction projects priced at over $150,000 can be awarded only to DCAMM-certified companies, Cape Cod Builders said. But since the certification comes into play only when a project includes construction of buildings, the town argued it was not required. The wharf project included a pavilion, but since it had no walls, it did not meet the definition of a building, the town said.

The judge agreed with the town.

In 2021, Cape Cod Builders filed a complaint against the town of Plymouth after a roof replacement job was awarded to Corolla Construction, even though Cape Cod Builders had the lowest bid.

The company claimed the town rejected its bid based on officials’ dislike of Pappas. Plymouth officials attested to difficulties with Pappas, saying he was “unprofessional and aggressive with town staff” during a local bridge restoration project that had just been completed, according to court documents. The town also listed complaints about the quality of the work.

While Cape Cod Builders provided a positive evaluation from an independent engineering consultant the town hired for the project, the judge said that one opinion doesn’t speak to day-to-day issues and the general ability of Cape Cod Builders and Pappas to work in harmony with town personnel.

The judge denied a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the bid award. In 2023, the case was dismissed, at the request of both sides.

Cape Cod Builders partially prevailed against the Wareham Fire District in a 2023 complaint. The Plymouth Superior Court judge granted a requested injunction stopping the district from moving forward with the low bidder for a fire station roof replacement because of the low bidder’s lack of DCAMM certification and the formal bid advertisement that estimated the cost of the job at $200,000. The judge, however, denied Cape Cod Builders’ request to order the district to give them the contract.

Cape Cod Builders withdrew the complaint when its attorney left private practice to take a job with the trial court. On Monday, Wareham staff said the town is preparing to put the roof project back out to bid, and it will require bidders to be DCAMM-certified.

Protesting to the Attorney General

After a lengthy permitting process, the town of Sandwich put the reconstruction of a 1,300-foot boardwalk out to bid in late 2022. In March 2023, the town received five bids. Cape Cod Builders submitted the lowest bid, $3.18 million, but the town chose the second lowest bidder, ACK Marine & General Contracting, saying the company was more experienced in complex marine projects. ACK’s bid was $3.23 million.

Cape Cod Builders filed a protest with the attorney general’s office, but Assistant Attorney General Deborah Anderson said the company did not meet the experience requirements for working in environmentally sensitive areas in its proposal since its past projects were significantly smaller.

In 2021, Cape Cod Builders filed a bid protest against Yarmouth, saying the town violated bidding laws when it rejected the company’s low bid for barn repairs at the historic Taylor Bray Farm. The town argued that it lawfully relied on negative reports from town employees involved in two prior projects with Cape Cod Builders. At the hearing on the bid protest, the company accused the Yarmouth Dept. of Public Works supervisor of engaging in a “smear campaign” against the company that resulted in it being “blacklisted.”

Anderson found in favor of Yarmouth, saying its decision was supported “by the contractor’s past history on the town’s projects.”

In addition to the bid protests against Sandwich and Yarmouth, Cape Cod Builders filed a protest against the state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation in 2016 for its determination that the company, which submitted the lowest bid for a small project, was not a responsible bidder based on an internet search that revealed the company had been decertified by the DCAMM. The assistant attorney general denied the bid protest.

In 2015, Cape Cod Builders requested that the attorney general’s office review the company’s DCAMM decertification, which had been based on two falsified evaluations and a forged signature on a financial statement. Cape Cod Builders had identified the preparer of the financial statement as a certified public accountant. When DCAMM contacted James Drowne to confirm he had prepared the financials, he said he was not a certified accountant and that his signature had been forged. Cape Cod Builders argued it did not knowingly supply false or misleading information.

Anderson concluded that DCAMM’s decertification decision was not “arbitrary or capricious,” but the attorney general’s office, in any case, did not have the authority to overturn a decision by DCAMM.

Pappas said Monday that the decertification had been valid for only one year. The company has since been in good standing with the state, he said.

“The Cape is a small community,” Pappas said. “All these procurement officers have meetings where they defame you, and you get blackballed.”