Finance — 01/06/15 Page 2
justified. The resolution was approved nevertheless and the RFP went out and the IFP went out and | can only
say that it was disastrous. The first attempt was recalled, the second attempt turned into four options. It was
very confusing except for maybe the last one. The last one puts the generator outside of the building. Clearly
it indicated that the Nashua Police Department really doesn’t know how to purchase a generator. Now who in
the city does | don’t know but certainly the school department had no difficulty getting a generator put in for a
reasonable price. | don’t Know why the police department is having so much trouble. They then came up with
another entirely new IFP in September and at first | would be asking for a consultant to be brought on board.
When | appeared before the Finance Committee last time they met on this subject | said where are the
requirements documented that need consulting? NRO 5-77 says any purchases between $1,000 and $10,000
have to be defined and meet the requirements. As | started checking after the meeting and there was no
requirements documented by the police department. What they did was had visits with consultants who toured
around and they told the consultants to give them a bid. When you don’t write down the requirements you are
going to wind up with bids of all different types. In this particular type pays for the consultant to come in and
raises it from $5,800 to do whatever they thought they had to do all the way up to $45,700. That’s an
incredible range for a relatively straightforward job. You take together outside of the building and hook them
up to whatever equipment you have. | hope the mayor will enforce 5-77. That applies to any purchase
between zero and $10,000. It also states in the ordinances that the purchasing manager, who writes the
check, should not write a check without a warrant. | spoke to Mr. Kooken about this at length. He sent me an
email that said | was correct. In an email dated December 31, 2015. There are some issues with the
consultant. The consultant wrote a 53-page spec. in detail. Then he wrote very detailed notes about
construction. The bidder that bid this job, based on what the city required based on the consultant, added to
the proposed contract, Attachment B. | don’t’ know if you have Attachment B because when | looked at the city
website | couldn't find Attachment B. Attachment B contains written details from July. You can’t write a
contract without Attachment B. | asked Mr. Kooken for a copy, and he sent it to me. | should also mention that
because | have been critical of this generator purchase since May when it started, you, yourselves, generated
a subsequent meeting. The meeting was attended by Captain Paulson, representatives from the consultant,
the Emergency Management Director, Justin Kates, myself and Alderman Siegel, to try to get some of the
details. My first question was where are the details of the cost proposal that you delegated, whatever, as being
prepared by the contractor. There was none. It’s just alump sum. The other question at the time | said how is
the size of the generator at 500 kilowatts? As it turns out the people over at the police department is about 376
kilowatts. That’s a very big load measured over about two years of time. You need a 500 kilowatt generator.
Well, you certainly need a 400 kilowatt generator. You could do with a 400 kilowatt generator. As | was
checking up on these prices | found there’s a difference between a 400 kilowatt diesel generator and a 500
kilowatt diesel generator is very small so you might as well go with the 500 kilowatt generator. We only found
this out after Justin Kates submitted the measurements from PSNH. The other problem | have goes back to
the specification and it’s if the city says on the specification | guess they would expect it to be adhered to. If
you look at attachment B which is attached to the contract which you may or may not have in your package, it
says quite clearly that the supplier only intends to meet the intent and he doesn’t intend to meet the
specifications. It says ASNE does not guarantee compliance with every government code. We'll just do the
best we can and that makes sense because what you are buying is an off-the-shelf system. You are buying a
generator of which many are sold all around the world. Gererex is the supplier and is a very well-known
supplier and it says in attachment B on page 8, ASNE will review the compliance and the codes upon request.
Who is ASNE? ASNE is not the bidder and ASNE is not the consultant so who is ASNE? It turns out that
ASNE is the supplier of the generator. In Boston, MA they supply Generex generators throughout New
England. Why is there a 53-page spec? Why pay a consultant $9,000 to do a spec that no one is going to
use? | have a problem with that. | have a problem with the fact that option 4 which is the earlier bid goes back
to May since applying, ASNE, the same generic generator except the fibrous component built-up generator, it
went for $293,000 and now it goes to $392,000; why is there an extra hundred dollars? That’s not very clear at
all. The consultants submitted some information, I’m talking to the $293,000 but they didn’t baseline it back to
figuring out where the $293,000 came from. There’s a $100,000 in question here. So, what! did because I’m
pretty familiar with this technology, | contacted some dealers on my own and | came up with my own estimate
on what | think this job will cost. I'll make this available to all of the members’ on the committee. If you look at
this you'll see that there are actual quotes. | actually received quotes. | don’t get special discounts and I’m not
sure the City of Nashua does. You can see here that the generator itself would be dropped shipped to right
