elpasospeak

The earlier comments about the construction manager at risk selection and how qualified the firms really were for the city ballpark piqued my curiosity.

According to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) issued for the ballpark, the city would issue a Request for Proposals after it selected candidates that passed the Request for Qualifications process.  In other words step one would be to select those firms that in the city’s opinion were qualified to receive the Request for Proposals (RFP).  Step two would be to issue and evaluate the RFP.

The document indicates that the RFP would be issued on December 4, 2012.  That was two days before the same document indicated they were supposed to figure out who would get the RFP (I guess that was just a typo — who cares about these things when you already have your mind made up?).  Anyway, the lucky firms would have until December 19, 2012 to respond with their offers.

Two weeks to figure out what your offer should be on a project this size is not a lot of time.  That is unless you knew about it before hand and had a chance to be working on your offer before the other firms.  At least four firms did respond though.

The city’s “Score Summary Form” can be found here.  It is a remarkable document.

I cannot help but note that the city staff reviewing the responses was able to work their way all the way through what must have been a lot of paper and technicalities and somehow issue their evaluation of the offers only one day after they received them!

Not only that, but they were unanimous in picking the number one and number two responses.  (A more cynical person might say that they were unanimous in selecting the responses that they were told to select.)  There was evidently some critical thinking necessary in ranking the number three and four responses since the results were not unanimous here.

I also note that the “Raters” did not have their names listed even though the city has listed them on RFQ’s in the past.  This is unfortunate.  Maybe the citizens would like to thank them individually for their hard work and diligence on this matter.

Let me say again that I support the ballpark.  It is the way we are doing it that bothers me.

We deserve better

Okay, Okay!  People tell me that I am naive.  Guilty as charged.

Yesterday I wrote in Baseball art that it looked like the city at one time thought about spending $850,000 for art at the new ball park, with most of the money going to out of town artists.  I saw some documents that made me hope that the amount had been cut down to $150,000 and would go to a local artist.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride …

Next Tuesday’s (January 15, 2013) city council agenda has item 11B on it that would approve the 2013 Public Art Plan for the City of El Paso.

The plan includes $850,000 for art at the soon to be built baseball park and $478,000 for art at the new city headquarters (why can’t we move art from the soon to be demolished city hall?).  Dozens of other projects are listed in the plan.

Art is something that I know nothing about.  I suppose we need it.  Please don’t make me pick it.

My objections here are that we evidently are using certificates of obligations (borrowing) to fund this.  If we borrow I think it should be for necessities.  We should pay for niceties with money that we actually have.

Secondly (but certainly no less important) if we are still giving preference to out of town artists I think that we are doing the wrong thing.  It appears from reading the document that the artists have already been chosen, and some are indeed from out of town.

Take a look at the document. It shows what they plan to spend and where the art will go.  It even has conceptual renditions of what some of it may look like.

Much of the plan addresses dressing up the Bataan Railway right next to the proposed ball park.  What a coincidence.   Should we consider this part of the cost of the ball park?

We deserve better