On Petition for Rehearing

OPINION

Part V. of our opinion, filed on October 1, 1976, is withdrawn, and in its place the following is substituted:

V. It was error to grant, as an alternative, a summary judgment for defendants on the merits.

In its “Decision and Order,” the trial court first concluded that “neither 42 U.S.C. 3301 et seq., 12 U.S.C. 1701(u), nor the CDA letters require the City to contract ‘to the greatest extent feasible’ with business concerns located in the neighborhood area. The City is contractually required by the Grant Agreement to ensure such preferential treatment in contract awards, but plaintiff lacks standing to enforce this Grant Agreement.” The court then stated:

The Court then proceeded to review the evidence and conclude that summary judgment should be rendered for defendants. In doing so, however, the court applied a wrong legal standard. It summarized its views as follows:

The statute, contrary to the views of the trial court, does require award of the contract in issue, “to the greatest extent feasible,” to Ramirez. This language clearly requires more than the trial court seems to think that it does. It is not enough that Ramirez was given a chance to bid, or that defendants “chose” not to negotiate with him. It is not enough that there appears to be a rational basis for what the defendants did. They were required, to the “greatest extent feasible,” to contract with Ramirez. This is strong language. It does not give the City officials the “broad discretion” that the trial court concluded that it does. We think that “greatest extent” means what it says, the maximum, and that the defendants were therefore obliged to take every affirmative action that they could properly take to make the award to Ramirez. Most of the evidence strongly points to a conclusion that they did not do so, and that what they did do had the effect, whether intentionally or not, of preventing Ramirez from getting the contract. The affidavits and testimony of Koeritz and others make it clear that they, as the responsible officials involved, shared the trial court’s views about their duties. They just did not believe that “greatest extent feasible” means what it says. At the very least, there is conflict in the evidence on the question. It follows that it was error to grant a summary judgment for the defendants.

The petition for a rehearing is denied.

The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.