Competitive Bidding Ludington-Style: Change the Rules During the Process

[XLFD]

Introduction

Competitive bidding is mandated by Section 2.4 of the Ludington Code for all projects unless the council can show that it is clearly in the city's advantage to forego the process.  The bids must be sealed if the contract is over $10,000.  For those who are unaware of what competitive bidding is here is a definition from Businessdictionary.com complete with links to other definitions therein:

Competitive Bidding:  Transparent' procurement method in which bids from competing contractors, suppliers, or vendors are invited by openly advertising the scope, specifications, and terms and conditions of the proposed contract as well as the criteria by which the bids will be evaluated. Competitive bidding aims at obtaining goods and services at the lowest prices by stimulating competition, and by preventing favoritism. In open competitive bidding (also called open bidding), the sealed bids are opened in full view of all who may wish to witness the bid opening.

The City of Ludington leadership knows of the competitive bidding process, but often goes around it, making the transaction look unethical and against the fiscal interests of the public.  The best example of this we have reviewed here at the Ludington Torch was for the engineering contract for the recent work on the Washington Avenue Bridge. 

We had the Ludington firm Nordlund & Associates that submitted a bid $173,458 less than the winner of the contract, a bid that was 28% of what the winning Grand Rapids engineering firm's bid was.  Each received the same criteria to bid on, and nothing was put in the notes by the selection committee why Nordlund's bid was rejected. 

The state department of transportation (MDOT) was represented at this meeting by Rick Liptak, whose interest was more in getting the best engineer for the project, as Ludington was to foot the bill for engineering costs, but very little of the project cost.  You may remember Mr. Liptak also from his work on South James Street, first closing curb cuts, then opening them.  He will also play a part in the debacle that was formalized last night by the city council in voting on a contract that was not competitively bid out regarding street and sewer work including that is shown below.

Request For Proposals (RFP) Says One Process was Followed...

Currently on the front page of the City's website you can find an entry called Request for Proposals which lays out the parameters for bidding on engineering work for a series of road and sewer projects primarily in the Fourth Ward of Ludington.  This is the documentation that at least seven engineering firms looked at, for seven agencies submitted bids hoping to be hired by the city for the project. 

Candidates were requested to send in six copies of two envelopes, one with their firm's qualifications references, and experience, the other with their bid.  They were told that their proposed bid needed to be in by a certain time and their proposed bid would be opened-- they emphasized this fact in the RFP:

  

Now if competitive bidding was actually conducted by our representatives who are looking for a fair and economical means of doing this project, we would have them look at the lowest bid, then decide whether there was any thing which disqualified that company from doing the project, and if there was, to place that decision in the public record.

What we received here, just as we got in the bridge engineering project was an unfair, costly decision which makes the whole process look crooked and racked with cronyism. 

...Memo to Council Says a Different, Uncompetitive Process was Followed

In the 4-27-2015 councilor packet starting on p. 36 and details a bit different process taking place.  As noted, seven firms did submit proposals by the deadline, and their firm's resume in another envelope, these seven companies are noted in the packet along with what the selection committee actually did to select a winner:

The memo declares they looked at the (cost) proposals, not the qualification and experience envelopes, and made a decision to reduce the field of contestants to three, and then they opened the cost proposals...

Again?!  The RFP says they were to open the cost proposals on April 14, and the selection committee supposedly did.  The RFP said they would narrow the field to three by April 17, and they may have, but if they had broken the cost proposals publicly on the 14th, they would already know the costs of all seven proposals.  Those envelopes would already be opened and publicly known in this open bidding process.

And if, for example, Nordlund & Associates submitted a cost proposal of $295,000 and had all of the qualifications and experience necessary for doing this mostly mundane road and sewer work, which they assuredly have, why would they be disqualified from offering their services? 

If you ran a business and received bids from respected, qualified companies where you could receive a considerable savings for choosing one that would work a lot cheaper, wouldn't you take that choice?  

And if you wanted bids from contractors and laid down a process by which you would pick the winner by certain standards, would you not incur potential liability if you decided to dismiss those standards in the eventual process you used?

The City of Ludington representatives and MDOT's Rick Liptak once again have betrayed the public trust in making a mockery of competitive bidding and saving the citizens of Ludington money, simply because they have another agenda and another set of rules which go contrary to our city charter and state laws.

[XLFD]

The city council agreed to this deal last night unanimously even after they were told it was not a competitive process in my opening comments, which they could have easily verified by checking their packets and the city website.  This is just one more reason why this council lacks any principles and feels fine with wasting public monies on non-competitive contracts with crony contractors.

[Willy]

Good job X. This again demonstrates how useless this current City Council is. 

[AQUAMAN]

So, did Fleis get the contract, or didn't they get to the point of letting the bid? And what were the other 4 bids, do we know, or is that a secret too? Useless Willy? Well, methinks that description may not be totally accurate, with all due respect. The City Council more often than not appears useful at breaking all the rules possible when it comes to the city code, city ordinance modifications and additions, voting for nonsensical projects that no one but a select few favor, going behind closed door meetings for serious situations, selling properties for pittances of true market values, giving tax breaks to favorites, letting unfair bids to favorite contractors, hoarding $10 Million in reserves, asking for bond issues into the Millions of $$ when they are loaded to the gills, hell, the list is endless in inadequacies and serious conflicts of interest all the way around.

[XLFD]

The other four bids were not put out in the councilor packets, but they should be available soon with a FOIA request I sent out this last weekend.  I can already see Councilor Holman getting angry about that.  If our local engineers Nordlund & Associates have a better deal than Fleis, and were effectively shafted by the way our leaders run 'competitive bidding', I will start some pot-stirring, as should we all.

[Willy]

[XLFD]

Kay is extremely lucky to have a follower like yourself that hangs on her every word, Willy, and brings it to the masses.

[AQUAMAN]

Nice picture Willy. Just put some long greasy hair on her head, some knarly yellow teeth, along with that fuzzy hair all over her face, and whoopee, an exact duplicate of the original nag.