Sometimes, when we watch local governments in action, we just shake our head in disbelief.
It’s no wonder some local governments don’t have any money to complete projects that citizens really want.
But they’re more than willing to pay big bucks (your tax dollars, of course) for unnecessary expenditures that really aren’t necessary.
This week’s prime example goes to Graham’s city council, which wasn’t satisfied with paying $45,000 to $55,000, the lowest of three bids received for developing a “master plan” for the city’s regional park along Jim Minor Road.
The city put out a “request for proposals”, only on its website, got three applications, and then the city council turned around and decided to hire the most expensive – whose price tag for the work was more than twice the low-bidder’s price – i.e., at $115,000.
What?
Yes, dear reader, that’s what they did.
We’re not surprised that state legislators have had to put in place safeguards to ensure that nonsense like that doesn’t happen. But city manager Megan Garner insisted this week that the city council had the flexibility to select whomever it wanted to develop the “master plan” for the park – regardless of price.
First a generic word about “master plans” of all varieties. We generally find them to be a waste of time and expense, regardless of the price tag.
Too often, the “consultant” firms that submit proposals have a pre-determined selection of “cookie cutter” recommendations that they can, and often do, make for multiple municipalities of various sizes.
Whether for transportation, pedestrian access, recreation, citywide planning, or any other municipal topic, these all have certain similarities, based on our observation.
City councils inevitably express the desire – as Graham’s did this week – to get maximum public participation and input for its plan.
That desire sounds well meaning, but it often amounts to very little in real life.
In reality, in actual practice, this usually translates to fewer than 100 citizens (and quite often far fewer than even that number) who show up at one or more public meetings with the consultant to press for their pet issues that they want to see included in the long-term plan.
It’s often also the case that the consultant ignores many residents’ stated wishes, if those don’t conform to what the consultant already knows the city wants to hear in the final recommendations.
So, it should be no surprise that our view is that “master plans” should be held to the fewest possible, and the price to the lowest possible, since, in practice, they’re usually not worth the price taxpayers have to pay – neither for the study, nor for the expansive “wish lists” included in the consultant’s final recommendations.
But Graham’s city council decided this week to more than double the low-bid submission, instead awarding the contract to a company that submitted a bid of $115,000 to conduct its “master plan.”
We also question whether city manager Megan Garner is correct in telling the council, in response to this newspaper’s question, that the city is not obligated to stick with the “lowest bid” – she claimed that “services” are exempt from such a requirement.
We’ve looked at the relevant state statutes and we cannot find any such exemption as Garner claims exists. The only exceptions we can find are for architectural, engineering, surveying, and construction management, and also potentially legal, all of which can be based on the caliber of the “qualifications” of the bidders.
Otherwise, state law requires that governments select the “lowest responsive, responsible bidder.” There was no argument that the Benesch firm (the low bidder) was not sufficiently responsive or responsible. Indeed, the city said that the company had done previous work, to the city’s satisfaction, regarding another master plan, for the Graham-Mebane Lake. And in so doing, was already familiar with the city.
Graham’s lawyers – Bob Ward and Bryan Coleman – sat like bumps on a log, never offering any legal advice, while Garner gave her interpretation. After all, who needs lawyers, when the city manager and the city council want to do something.
We note that a legislative investigation of the school system released earlier this year criticized the ABSS school board for having awarded…you guessed it…contracts that weren’t decided based on competitive bidding requirements.
The legislative investigation also raised the possibility that individual board members who participated in such shenanigans might face personal liability for their participation in a no-bid system.
Oh, one more problem that’s not insignificant: we cannot find any evidence that the city ever properly advertised to solicit bidders for doing a master plan in the first place.
We very much expect that we’ll see the city ultimately have to pay out some amount of money to the company whose bid the city council so cavalierly rejected.
Frankly, council members Bobby Chin and Bonnie Whitaker were especially irresponsible in their harsh characterizations of the rejected company’s motivations – “not a serious bid,” according to Chin, “low-balling,” according to Whitaker.
So Graham taxpayers should be prepared.
We suspect they’ll be called on to pay tens of thousands of dollars more over the coming year or two – not only for the higher price tag of the master plan, but, potentially, to pay off the low-bidder they shafted this week.
