Last summer as Commissioner Chavez-Vasquez attended her first city commission meetings some thought they observed "a deer in the headlights" new public servant, afraid to question or make waves. No more! Case in point is the December 6 City Commission meeting when Purchasing Agent Robert C. Luna brought a spending request for engineering on a city project in the amount of $59,000 before the commission for approval. Ms. Vasquez simply asked if the contract had gone out for bids. .
Now, Mr. Luna is not accustomed to having his submitted proposals questioned. It's as if he brings them down from Mount Sinai on stone tablets to the commission. Past commissions have approved many huge items without bids routinely. American Surveillance, for example, a security company headed by Jaime Escobedo, the brother of the "fake" doctor Enrique Escobedo recently selected as school board president at BISD, has been designated the "sole provider" on such lucrative contracts as the $200,000 award for a security system at the sports park and, more recently, the two contracts, each for roughly $100,000 for security at the multimodal facility.
Luna bristles whenever his proposals are questioned, then issues a condescending pat answer to satisfy the uninformed questioner wasting his time with such a trivial detail as putting a contract out for bids. In this instance, though, mayor Tony Martinez rises to the occasion and squelches the Luna doubletalk. When City Manager Charlie Cabler tries to intervene in Luna's behalf, Martinez stops him in mid-sentence.
Here is the video of the historic occasion:
Here is the question: Is there a mechanishm in place to ensure tht all qualified vendors are treated equally, or are you (city staff) playing favorites?
ReplyDeleteMarco
He is a joke — do not forgot the security contracts!
ReplyDeleteThe answer is "B"
ReplyDeleteOf course there is no mechanism in place to ensure fairness. Once the RFQ's are issued staff gets to choose from the list. How? That is the 64k question.
ReplyDeleteThey never imagined someone would have the temerity to question their procedures. They've been at it for far too long.
Engineering is defined as a "professional servvice" and is not eligible for bidding in the State of Texas. On certain projects, a Request for Qualifications is issued (RFQ). Engineers then submit their qualifications and the most qualified engineer must be selected and a price negotiated for their service. If negotiations break down, then the second most qualified may be selected, and so forth. The City uses a large variety of local engineers for their street projects. I don't think that RFQ's are usually solicited for street projects since most of the local engineering firms have past experience on City street projects, and therefore, most of them are equally qualified.
ReplyDeleteEngineering services cannot be bid on! That is against the State Law that Mr. Luna cited!! As far as equality amongst the engineering firms on the rotation, that is a hard target. When a street, or streets are selected for reconstruction, the engineer is selected with the understanding that they will get 8.5% of the contract price. Depending on what the engineer finds as he is designing the repairs, the price could vary significantly. Variations could involve whether the street deteriorated because of bus or truck traffic, and therefore a heavier street paving section is required, to other things like if underground utility replacement has to be figured into the construcion. The variable soil types in Brownsville also factor into the variability of cost. Finally, the most important factor related to variability of cost is the bid price for the actual construction. If the bids are high, the engineer makes more money. if they are low, they make less, since their fee is contingent on construction price. No two projects are alike, and therefore, it is virtually impossible to be able to make sure all the engineers on a rotation are equally compensated!!
ReplyDeleteYes, we hear all the blah, blah. Again, how does the city ensure that the "rotation process" is not interfered with? Or is the city staff stating, "It is fair to all parties involved, because we say so." That does not convince me.
ReplyDelete