Postponing Decisions is not Good Government

Note – On Dec 2, 2014 the City Council voted to postpone the tree maintenance contract, even though the contract had expired more than 6 months earlier and we were in the prime time to be trimming trees. On Dec 16 the Council voted to postpone the decision on the appeal of the Mobile Gas station to sell beer and alcohol. Still waiting in the wings are two more appeals the Council voted to postpone. Also, by failing to re-visit the tree maintenance contract from the Dec 2 meeting, this effectively postponed a decision until Jan 6, 2015. In response to all these postponements I offered the following remarks during the “Council Comments” section of the meeting on Dec 16.

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“I am very disappointed that in our second meeting as a new council we have already postponed two key decisions. Those of us who chose to spend our time and energies on the City Council did so with the specific promise of making government work more efficiently and effectively, and already we are mired down in postponements and continuances.

Postponements are inherently wasteful of time and resources. More importantly, in the real world where businesses know that “time is money”, the inability of a government to respond is a problem impacting their bottom line.

And in the case of the tree management postponement, there are windows of opportunities that are missed because of postponements.

It should be our goal, as a Council, to eliminate postponements, not to make them a regular part of our agenda.

Bear in mind, these two postponements (i.e., tree management and PCN for Mobile) are not isolated cases. Mayor Robinson, at our last meeting, noted the problems with the IT contract and Councilman Voigts reminded us about the problems with the Trash contract.

When you look at these examples there is a clear pattern, and it involves Millions of dollars in contracts.

Lake Forest is a contract city. The RFP process is an integral part of our ability to function effectively as a contract city, and the pattern of botched RFPs and postponed decisions strikes at the very core of what we are supposed to be about.

If we are to overcome these problems we need to understand what’s happening. Let’s review for a moment what happened with the tree management contract -

• In Jan 2014 Staff recommended changing the process from bid to RFP.
• 9 months later, on Oct 7, 2014, looking at the 2 proposals staff recommended rejecting them because they were too high. They changed their minds and recommend returning to the bid process.

Why did it take 9 months and why did we only get 2 proposals?

• They issued bid documents to 16 “local contractors” by e-mail.

Why did we use e-mail? Is that any way to get bidders? Perhaps that’s why we get so few bids?

• By Oct 29, 2014 they received 2 bids, from the same companies that responded to the RFP. Now the differences between the two bids were even greater than before -
• o $259,995 from GSTS vs. $349,370 as an RFP
• o $581,135 from WCA vs. $486,825 as an RFP

Why weren’t these differences ironed out in the bid process?

• On Dec 2 they brought these bids to the Council, and one company complained that the bid from the winning company was “unbalanced” and “unfair”. The Council voted 4 to 1[1] to continue for 2 weeks, have the staff work with the companies, and come back to the Council with “apples to apples” comparisons (something that should have been done the first time).

Bear in mind we are dealing with tree trimming that should have already been started since winter is the best time to trim most species.

• Worried that the staff would not make the promised commitment to return in two weeks, I specifically asked the City Manager for his assurances that they will get back to us in two weeks. He conferred with staff and promised that he will meet the deadline.
• Despite the promise, the item does not show up on the Dec 16 agenda.

This is a comedy of errors, from the bad decision to change the process, and then re-change it, to the inordinate amount of time it took to complete the RFP process, to the fact that the contract was allowed to expire with no new contract in place, to the inability to get a large number of bidders, to the inability to give the Council “apples to apples” comparisons, etc.

This is not good government.

I’m sure there are specific reasons for many of these short-comings, but as a Council member I am interested in the overall process and the outcome. Moreover, I am concerned that this is not an isolated case but rather represents the most recent in a series of cases involving essentially the same types of problems with essentially the same types of results.

The challenge for us, on the Council, is to (1) face the fact that our RFP/bidding process is flawed and (2) insist that the staff address the problem and rectify it asap. Going forward, as a Council member, I do not expect to see (a) contracts with only 2 bidders, (b) inordinate delays in the process, (c) failures to provide “apples to apples” comparisons on documents before the Council, and (d) missed deadlines.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. . You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook ne; W>Ms