Finance Committee - 09/16/2020 Page 6
Mayor Donchess
Alderwoman Kelly?
Alderwoman Kelly
I’m good.
Mayor Donchess
Alderwoman Kelly and Alderman Laws are only on video and | can’t see an electronic hand, | don’t have it on
my screen for some reason. So if you want to ask a question or something, just speak up. The other people |
can see so the other people you can just raise your hand | can see you on video. | think Alderwoman Lu had a
question.
Alderwoman Lu
Yes | do, thank you Mr. Mayor. One of my questions is when we get an incomplete bid, | just don’t know the
process. So are we not able to — like does this process work such that if the bid does not conform then we
can’t coach them on what they need to do? The reason | am asking this, it just — you know | notice it seems
frequently you know we might have a situation like this where we have you know one bidder or one conforming
bidder. So my question is, is that the way it is, is we can’t just go back and ask them; to fix something or
conform to the requirements?
Director Kleiner
No normally we would not. So there’s a couple things to consider here. The bidding process within the City is
a very public process. So once bids are received they are posted on our City Web Site and all the bidders
have access to the other bidder’s information. So a bid has to be complete when submitted. It would really give
an unfair advantage if one bidder saw other bidder’s information and then we went back and asked them to
change certain things. It would give an unfair advantage. So the bids must be complete, we specify that, we
are very clear in our language on that. And these individuals, we do reach out, we do talk to them after about
exactly why their bids were rejected and hope that they will bid on future projects.
Mayor Donchess
When you don’t follow the rules strictly there can easily be litigation over whether the bid was improperly
awarded. And especially when there’s Federal money involved, there are Federal Requirements that you bid it
and you only considering conforming bids.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. | just have a couple of other questions if | could.
Mayor Donchess
Yes.
Alderwoman Lu
| can’t find the schedule it’s like a chart where you see what is starting and what is ending, you know, when it
starts and when it ends. | thought | saw it but if anyone knows what page it is on. My question is just several of
these times take two months, several of these departments will be two months you know under construction it
looked to me. And that just seems excessive.
