Tuesday’s City Council agenda has another bunch of no-bid purchases totaling just short of 1.2 million dollars on it (item 12B).
These are primarily for computers and related equipment that the City wants to “refresh”. With all of the other expenses related to moving City Hall I would think that they could hold off on this for a while, but it is possible that getting new equipment at this point makes financial sense. I won’t get into that argument today,
I do want to talk about how they are doing it.
Once again they are using a buy-board without soliciting competitive bids. Why? Favoritism? Laziness? Arrogance? Some of each?
What they should do is request competitive bids and then make the buy-board offer one of those that are evaluated. If after evaluating the offers the buy-board offers the best value the City should then buy
from it. Remember that market conditions change and that we might get a better deal today then we got when the buy-board contract was negotiated. That is how the Federal e-rate program requires it to be done. The City, County, State, school districts and other governments should do it the right way too.
We deserve better.
Posted by jcurrey 
elpasospeak 