Favoritism

January 19, 2013

Here are some specifics about the buy-board contracting that the City of El Paso has been involved in lately.

You will recall that they recently issued a $4 million dollar contract through a Houston based purchasing organization.  This money looks like it is going to be used to remodel the building the city is going to move into.

Some at the city claim that it was competitive bidding:

Decide for yourself:

  • The request for proposals (RFP) was what is commonly called a “beauty contest”.  The evaluation criteria used gave points to each bidder for such things as the bidder’s references (15%), reputation (10%), ability (35%), ownership (underutilized businesses could get 5%), and price (25%).  References and reputation add up to 25% and sound like the same thing to me.  Ability must have been judged subjectively.  With those subjective judgments we are at 60% of the evaluation and it comes down to who looks prettier to the judge.  10% was awarded for something called “Value Add”, whatever that is.  I would think that “Value Add” is in the eye of the beholder.
  • The bidder;s price only accounted for 25% of the evaluation factors.  Price is 25% — how can that be a bid?
  • Pricing was based on what portion the bidder would charge of a nationally published price estimating book (the Oxford Dictionaries define estimate as “roughly calculate or judge the value”).  The book does not reflect current market conditions, it lists historical values that are gathered from survey respondents, in other words what something used to cost on average.   The prices do not reflect current market conditions in El Paso.  When times are tough construction prices go down after all.  Bidding is supposed to use market price to determine the lowest offer.

There are several buy boards in Texas that offer these kinds of contracts.  The city only uses the Houston based one for this work.  The board charges 4% for its services while other buy-boards charge less.

The company that the city chooses each time from this buy-board is only one of twenty or so eligible contractors that are listed for this area.  Other contractors are available.  Why does the city only choose this one?

Staff at the City of El Paso claims that this purchasing method saves time because detailed specifications do not have to be drawn up.  For $4 million dollars, why not?  The point is moot however.  The $648 thousand the city awarded the other day had plans drawn up by an architectural firm.  The $694 thousand they spent with this same firm for a new roof for our soon to be destroyed city hall had plans drawn by an architectural firm.  If the city has plans, why not take it to bid?  You can’t tell me that the city did not know about this need a month ago.  After you advertise for the legally required two weeks and perform your evaluation you can process a bid in one month.  That is tight, but it can be done and done fairly.

The sad fact is that this is favoritism.

  • Other buy-boards that are less expensive are available
  • Other firms are available — even on this buy board
  • The city keeps choosing the same firm from a field of many qualified firms

We deserve better

2 Comments | City government, Purchasing, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

The laws are for citizens, not city employees.

January 18, 2013

This was posted anonymously.

—————————————

On the way to work today, I drove a couple of miles down Mesa next to a bright, shiny City of El Paso Code Enforcement pick-up truck.

The guy was slouched against the window, talking on his phone the entire way.  Clearly not a business call and total disregard for the no-talking-while-driving (without a hands-free device) ordinance.

But here’s the punch line…that’s the second time I’ve seen him just driving around talking on his phone.

Great work if you can get it.

Every time I see those trucks I think they are police trucks because of the way they are painted and the light racks on top. That’s why I pay attention to them.

I pulled up right beside him, rolled down my window, and actually honked at him three times, trying to get his attention. He was totally oblivious. I was going to tell him to obey the law and get off his [deleted] phone even if it cost me a ticket. Then I was going to actually go to court and to the media and explain how I got the ticket.

 

Leave a Comment » | City government, Personal Experiences With Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Minimal due to condition of building

January 18, 2013

In Pre Sneak Attack I wrote about how city council broke the remodeling of the second floor of the El Paso Times building into two job orders.  The first one they issued without letting us know — it was for $450 thousand to demolish the old improvements.  The second one was for $649 thousand — they had to take it to city council.  The city manager called obeying state law “a formality”.  See 1 plus 1 not equal to 2.

The net effect is that the city slipped through the $450 thousand and spent a total over $1 million through a buy board where schools in Houston get 4% of what we spend and local contractors do not get a chance to bid.

The contract was discussed in More of Our Money For Houston where city council awarded $4 million through the buy board, with 4% of that going to Houston.  I wrote at the time that I wondered why the amount was so large.

The El Paso Inc. cleared that up for us in its January 13, 2013 front page article.  It appears that the contractor will start next week doing work at the 811 Texas building.  Then on February 15 they are scheduled to start work on the first floor of the El Paso Times building, all this through the Houston buy board.

Remember that on September 18, 2012 the citys Chief Financial Officer told the city council that the improvements needed at the Times building were “Minimal due to condition of the building”.  We now know of at least three separate job orders that must have been issued through this buy board on this building that we were told to buy.

The El Paso Inc. article also mentions that the city plans to house council chambers on the first floor.  Previously we had been led to believe that council would meet in the main library for a while.  Maybe that is still the case.  In City Council Chambers the cost to build new council chambers was identified as $800,000 from a city slide presentation.

So what does this add up to?  So far:

  • $450,000 to demolish the second floor improvements
  • $649,000 to build new offices on the second floor
  • Unknown amount (so much for open government) for work on the first floor
  • $800,000 or so for new city council chambers

That puts us at at least $1,899,000 and climbing.  The El Paso Inc. article puts the purchase price of the building at $9.4 million.  The Oxford Dictionaries defines minimal as “of a minimum amount, quantity, or degree; negligible”.  

Twenty percent is not negligible!

They have not been telling the truth.

We deserve better

2 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times, Open Government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Declaratory judgment

January 17, 2013

City council has decided to file a lawsuit to get a declaratory judgment that would say that they have the right to issue bonds for the construction of the new ball park.

It seems that there just might, maybe, could be valid legal challenges to their claim of legality.  They need a definite ruling to make the bond issuing process safer.

I have been vocal about my thoughts that tearing down city hall is a horrible idea, but at this point we need to go ahead with the project.  Undoing the damage (buildings purchased, contracts started, movement of staff, etc.)  that has already been done would be expensive and really messy.

A declaratory judgment in the city’s favor would make it clear that the court thinks issuing the bonds is legal under Texas law.

The mechanism they are using is chapter 1205 of the Texas Government Code.  The chapter gives the city the right to file the suit either in Travis County or El Paso County.

It seems that they chose Travis County.  According to the chapter, the court must now issue an order.

Sec. 1205.041. NOTICE TO INTERESTED PARTIES.

(a) The court in which an action under this chapter is brought shall, on receipt of the petition, immediately issue an order, in the form of a notice, directed to all persons who:

(1) reside in the territory of the issuer;

(2) own property located within the boundaries of the issuer;

(3) are taxpayers of the issuer; or

(4) have or claim a right, title, or interest in any property or money to be affected by a public security authorization or the issuance of the public securities.

(b) The order must, in general terms and without naming them, advise the persons described by Subsection (a) and the attorney general of their right to:

(1) appear for trial at 10 a.m. on the first Monday after the 20th day after the date of the order; and

In other words, if you want to say anything about it show up in court in Travis County.  I don’t see a lot of us traveling to present our thoughts.

If the lawsuit had been filed in El Paso County a visiting judge would probably have been appointed so that no local judge would have to be involved.  That would make sense to me.  We could have then gone to court to have our say one way or the other.

City council obviously did not want that.  We might have had a say on the issue.

Is there no end to how far they will go to deny public input?

We deserve better

1 Comment | City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Convenient to whom?

January 16, 2013

I usually try pretty hard to use the language properly.  For some reason the rules about who and whom never registered with me.  I guess that whom just sounded pompous to me.  Feel free to educate me.

The city used to ask businesses to bid on contracts and then let the contracts run through to completion unless the bidder did not perform according to the contract.  When you bid on a contract you need to know the length of the commitment so that you can recover your costs.

The city’s word pretty much used to be gold.  They let the contracts run to completion.  As far back as I can remember the city has placed wording in the contracts that allowed them to terminate a contract early “for convenience”.  The contractor did not have to do anything wrong, the city could just change their mind.

We seldom saw the city terminating contracts for convenience and thus bidders did not have much to worry about.

Lately it seems that the city is terminating contracts for convenience.  Honor, keeping their word, seems to have gone out the window.  In this situation the city found a firm it liked better, issued a new contract, and fired the old contractor.

I don’t know the particulars.  Maybe they should have been fired.  If they deserved to be fired the city should have done it “for cause” (because the contract was violated).

Now bidders need to be careful.  They need to get their start-up costs out of a contract earlier instead of spreading them over the life of the contract.  They city cannot be trusted to live up to their original commitment.

This will raise the price of bids.

We deserve better

4 Comments | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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