Graham wants to get a consultant firm to do a “master plan” for the city’s regional park on Jim Minor Road. After soliciting bids for the work, the city got three proposals, with bids ranging from $55,000 to $115,000.
Tuesday night, the city decided to pick the highest-priced option, overruling the staff’s recommendation to choose the lowest-priced option.
Three companies made submissions to the city, although the full descriptions of their proposals were not included in the “agenda packet” available to the public and council members.
The low-priced bidder was Benesch, a Charlotte firm, which bid $45,000 to $55,000 to develop the master plan. The company also won the bid and conducted a master plan for the Graham-Mebane Lake, which city officials described as having been well received – with the exception that the time frame for the report got expanded, at least partially due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(Graham officials said they were aware of no connection to the firm with Graham planning board member Michael Benesch.)
A second company, which the council didn’t discuss much Tuesday night, was Bolton & Menk of Raleigh, submitted a bid of $90,000.
The highest-priced alternative was from WithersRavenel, which has ten locations across the state; its bid was $115,000.
Each company responded to a request for proposals from the city.
Mayor Jennifer Talley pressed recreation and parks director Brian Faucette about what contributed to the “big difference in price” among the three companies.
Faucette said he really could not “explain the difference.” He did elaborate that WithersRavenel has more meetings with residents and more draft plans that would be submitted to the city than Benesch’s proposal.
Faucette said the recreation committee had also reviewed the proposals, without financial costs attached, in order to give an assessment based entirely on the substance of their descriptions. The committee recommended either WithersRavenel or Benesch.
Faucette said he had attempted to find out if WithersRavenel would lower its estimate, but that the company would not – without cutting the number of “touches” – i.e., meetings with city residents.
Faucette, who had recommended Benesch, said in response to a council question, that “if money was not a factor,” he would have recommended WithersRavenel.
A question from this newspaper’s reporter about whether Benesch had been given any option to adjust its low bid figure upward in order to accommodate the additional meetings that council members seemed to want was turned down as inappropriate. City manager Megan Garner said allowing the low bidder to revise its proposal “could be considered giving preference” to the company.
Garner said that the city was not under any obligation to award the bid to the lowest bidder since the bid was for “services,” which she said state law allows municipalities to award without regard to the bid submissions.
During a half-hour discussion about the agenda item, members gradually turned against the low-cost Benesch proposal. Councilman Bobby Chin said he didn’t think “Benesch was serious” about its cost submission. Council member Bonnie Whitaker added, “They low-balled it.”
“You get what you pay for,” added councilman Joey Parsons. Ultimately, the council voted for Whitaker’s motion to establish a budget of up to $115,000 (the WithersRavenel bid) for the master plan. It passed unanimously, 5-0, with support from each council member: Talley, mayor pro tem Ricky Hall, Chin, Parsons, and Whitaker.
