Ludington's Mole Dilemma

[XLFD]

Tonight the Ludington City Council will meet in session electronically for the second time and among the deliberations and decisions they will be making is whether to follow a fair competitive bidding process or not.

At stake is a three year contract for fertilization and weed control (F/WC) for city properties (including parks), and no fewer than five contractors submitted bids for the project.  After Ludington DPW Supervisor Joe Stickney reviewed the proposals received after putting out a request for proposal (RFP), he determined that the low bid should be ignored and sent a recommendation to council saying the current F/WC contractor was who should be picked.  Before looking at the particulars, let's look at recent history.

On April 28, 2014 (p.37), the city council had a choice between Larsen's Landscaping and Turf Care/Mole Man who submitted bids for F/WC.  Larsen's bid was significantly (about 15%) cheaper than the other, ran by then-County Commissioner Curt VanderWall.  The council chose Larsen's low bid, as they should have when conducting the competitive bidding process.

On February 27, 2017 (p. 40), the same two vied again for the F/WC contract from the City.  While Larsen's bid was about 3% higher than their 2014 rate, Turf Care came down nearly $2000 from their 2014 bid and was 7% smaller than Larsen's.  The city council approved then-State Representative Curt VanderWall's company, as they should have.

That brings us to April 27, 2020 (p.55) where the City is fortunate enough to have five different companies submit bids for the F/WC contract, including the two rivals.  

Comparing the bids, it seems fairly clear who the overall low bidder is:  Grand Haven's Tru Green, a company with a lot of rave reviews for its service.  Turf Care is higher on all six items bid out than Tru Green, so when the top two are compared, you see a lot of savings, all in favor of Tru Green:

Prior years has seen Lime treatments used once, F/WC and grub treatment applied 2-5 times as needed.  Each liming saves $1227, and each application of the other treatments save $396 each time used, saving from $2000-$3200 per year.  This is a much greater difference than the gap between Larsen's and Turf Care in either 2014 and 2017.  

So you would think that current State Senator Curt VanderWall's company lost the contract with the City of Ludington.  Not if they take Joe Stickney's recommendation; he wants Turf Care, citing they are a local company and did good work over the last three years:

Joe Stickney was instrumental in several other decisions when the city council was asked to ignore competitive bidding, and it wasn't in order to improve the local economy.  Remember back when seven engineering companies bid on redoing the Washington Avenue Bridge, including the low-bidder from Ludington, Nordlund & Associates, the City chose Fishbeck from Grand Rapids spending 3.5 times as much!  More recently, Joe helped the City ignore the low bid offered for sidewalk construction last year from a local company, recommending one from outside the county.

It should be appreciated that Joe wants to go local now, but it should not be appreciated that he wants to waste money once again, defy the rules of competitive bidding once again, in a move that looks politically motivated.  The city council will likely abide his counsel, since they are likely in agreement in thinking that if they don't choose the state senator's business, future quid pro quos won't go in their favor.

UPDATE:  The council voted 6-1 tonight to approve Turf Care's proposal, with only Councilor Serna voting against, expressing her desire to save the citizen's money by following competitive bidding protocols.

[Willy]

I agree X. They should have taken the lowest bid but I can see using a local business and keeping the money in the community. I don't think this would ever happen but could the ordinance about bidding be changed so that if an outside bid is the lowest then a local company could have a chance to match that bid? Just a thought.

[XLFD]

Good question, Willy, it would be nice to be able to give local businesses a better chance, but it would spoil the fairness of competitive bidding if it wasn't on a level playing field.  Local businesses should already have an advantage due to less mobilization costs and having knowledge and working relationships with local supply and service chains.  If the two lowest bids were about equal, within a percent or two difference, maybe one could put a rebid option out to allow either one to slash their proposal prices even more, but this should be part of a written competitive bidding process. 

I have sent a FOIA request to City Manager Foster to look and see whether there is a written competitive bidding policy the city uses which isn't available to the public.  Section 2.4 of the city code ensures that the lowest responsive and responsible bid is chosen, and that didn't happen here, or last year when they selected Ruggles over Spuller for sidewalks when Jackie Steckel was interim manager.

If you look up competitive bidding procedures for cities on Google, you will find several written policies that have a process that rules out most of the subjective noise that Ludington's council always seems to gravitate toward when choosing contractors.

[stump]

That renegotiating could get pretty expensive. I recall years ago the city of Whitehall done something like that on a large paving project. A out of town pavement company had the low bid. The next was a local that they gave the contract to after the city renegotiated the bidding process only with the local. The out of town contractor sued the city for loss of profits because he was not included in the new secret bid redo. Out of town contractor won . 

[AQUAMAN]

I think the COL ordinance on bidding is 10% or less on alternative bidders, and that is supposed to be the rule, period. But, nowadays, it seems like anything can be the exception, and that is not fair, nor legal.

[XLFD]

A re-bid like the kind you detail would be unfair to the winning low bid if:  1) the written policy did not include such a scheme and 2) they were not given the opportunity to redo their bid also (as in stump's scenario).  Either could easily work its way to court and be decided for the original low bid winner.

Recently, during a water or wastewater project, some official stated there was some 'rule' that allowed the council to choose something other than a low bid if there wasn't a significant difference between bids; Mitch Foster, who properly did not offer his own recommendation for this F&WC contract, stated at this meeting the council was not restricted to taking the low bid.  I have made a FOIA request to see whether this is the city's existing policy, and see when it was enacted (if it ever was). 

I will share that when it becomes available, Aquaman, allowing you and others to find out the truth.  I am seriously under the impression that the City doesn't have hard rules, and is free to ignore competitive bidding, as they have blatantly done on many occasions.