Rick Bell: City spending “is consistent with having an absence of rules”

[CaptainCrunch]

Thats the problem though Peter, its not as much the corruption, which I don't think there's that element. But there is the increasing tax burden thats going to remove the advantage of living in this city.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Thats the problem though Peter, its not as much the corruption, which I don't think there's that element. But there is the increasing tax burden thats going to remove the advantage of living in this city.

I should have added the tag "responsibly."

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by WilsonFourTwo

Are you ting me? We're not talking about who the Mayor's official barber gets to be or where to buy a couple $100,000 sanding trucks. We're talking about 5 Million dollar jobs for permanent infrastructure. And you're telling me that in the time the fancy-pants bridge designer was envisioning the Chinese finger-trap, Ellis Don couldn't have come up with a bid?

Ummmm, I said a project of this scope should go to a competitive bid. My larger point being that this whole audit may probably lead to an overreaction with EVERYTHING having to go to a competitive bid, which would create the opposite problem.

Again, people claim this is some kind of corruption, but corruption is handing out cushy contracts to friends and donors. Last time I checked, Santiago Calatrava is a spanish architect and structural engineer who has nothing to do with the the senior bureaucrat that drove this project. He was selected specifically for this project because of his technical expertise for such a challenging bridge design and his international reputation for delivering the highest level of design on earth. CMLC did an international competition for its bridge for St Patrick's Island and I would argue that very few (realistically costed) designs even can be mentioned in the same sentence as the Peace Bridge (which I think is a gorgeous structure - I know this is totally subjective) or any other Calatrava bridge in quality. I'm sorry, but Ellis Don is a contractor, not an architect and structural engineering firm.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Ummmm, I said a project of this scope should go to a competitive bid. My larger point being that this whole audit may probably lead to an overreaction with EVERYTHING having to go to a competitive bid, which would create the opposite problem.

i think every major project that involves heavy spending should go out to competitive bid. If someone wants to buy a one off photocopier, or something like that then fine go to it.

But a $25 million dollar purchase there's no way that it shouldn't have gone out for bid. Who knows, we might have gotten a better design for the bridge or a better cost for it.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

i think every major project that involves heavy spending should go out to competitive bid. If someone wants to buy a one off photocopier, or something like that then fine go to it.

But a $25 million dollar purchase there's no way that it shouldn't have gone out for bid. Who knows, we might have gotten a better design for the bridge or a better cost for it.

Keep in mind that only the design of the bridge, not the construction was sole-sourced. The construction did go out to a competitive bid which comprises that majority of the cost ($18 million) of the project (another bit of misinformation about this whole thing). Personally, I think design competition would have been a good idea, even if was a Request for Qualification and a limited shortlist design competition, which they could have easily included Calatrava.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Keep in mind that only the design of the bridge, not the construction was sole-sourced. The construction did go out to a competitive bid which comprises that majority of the cost ($18 million) of the project (another bit of misinformation about this whole thing). Personally, I think design competition would have been a good idea, even if was a Request for Qualification and a limited shortlist design competition, which they could have easily included Calatrava.

Thats what I'm saying though, even $7 million is a ludicris amount of money for a sole source contract.

I don't really care about the Calatrava name on a bridge, at this point its about the oversight of the contracting process.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Thats what I'm saying though, even $7 million is a ludicris amount of money for a sole source contract.

I don't really care about the Calatrava name on a bridge, at this point its about the oversight of the contracting process.

Where'd you get the $7 million from? Just an assumption? There's an awful lot of conjecture without checking facts about this project.

[CaptainCrunch]

estimating based on the 25 million dollar price tag and 18 million construction costs. edit the design fee was 4 million, still to much to me for a single source.

[Shazam]

It's pretty easy to single-source a contract even if there is a "competition".

We get to resubmit our proposal again for a certain RFP that keeps getting re-RFPed every few years. They keep phoning us encouraging us to submit even though we seem to have no chance.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Shazam

It's pretty easy to single-source a contract even if there is a "competition".

We get to resubmit our proposal again for a certain RFP that keeps getting re-RFPed every few years. They keep phoning us encouraging us to submit even though we seem to have no chance.

But at least if there's non single source there's oversight. In this case there's none.

[Bunk]

Approximately 75% of all City projects are procured through a single-source contract (from approved lists). It's not so much about cost as specialized skill requirements that, in my opinion, should drive procurement decisions to achieve desired results. In this case, it was a highly technical bridge - 130 m clear span that required no peirs in the river and a low height due to the heli-pad, all while trying to achieve a design befitting of its important location. Arguably, Calatrava as a world renowned architect that also is a structural engineer is one of the few people capable of effectively pulling off all these objectives simultaneously.

All that is a red-herring however for most people that just don't give a flying f*** about the quality of design and infrastructure that doesn't speed up their daily commute. It flies in the face of what we as Calgarians spend most (billions) of our money on, which is interchanges for cars. The City or Province could sole-source every interchange on stoney trail and 99% of Calgarians wouldn't give a damn.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Ummmm, I said a project of this scope should go to a competitive bid. My larger point being that this whole audit may probably lead to an overreaction with EVERYTHING having to go to a competitive bid, which would create the opposite.

Oh snap....

What you deserve: An apology
What you get: I'm sorry, misread your OP!

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Approximately 75% of all City projects are procured through a single-source contract (from approved lists). It's not so much about cost as specialized skill requirements that, in my opinion, should drive procurement decisions to achieve desired results. In this case, it was a highly technical bridge - 130 m clear span that required no peirs in the river and a low height due to the heli-pad, all while trying to achieve a design befitting of its important location. Arguably, Calatrava as a world renowned architect that also is a structural engineer is one of the few people capable of effectively pulling off all these objectives simultaneously.

All that is a red-herring however for most people that just don't give a flying f*** about the quality of design and infrastructure that doesn't speed up their daily commute. It flies in the face of what we as Calgarians spend most (billions) of our money on, which is interchanges for cars. They could sole-source every interchange on stoney trail and 99% of Calgarians wouldn't give a damn.

Tell that to the taxpayers in Dallas, or the bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice. If this bridge comes in on budget I'll eat my hat.

[Nufy]

For most engineering companies and their clients (I would assume) there is a dollar limit that you have to stay under if you want to sole source. Once you go above that amount you are required to have a min of 3 bids.

Doesn't the city have the same policy...Should it ??????

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Tell that to the taxpayers in Dallas, or the bridge over the Grand Canal in Venice. If this bridge comes in on budget I'll eat my hat.

I never said his projects are always on budget!

Anyway, the contracters that bid on the construction initially indicated that they would not be able to construct it for the $18 millon requested. However, a few design changes including the bridge deck material brought it under the desired number.

[calculoso]

Approved lists for sole source vendors need to be revised every now and then too. Prices change, but if the list doesn't, then money is flying out the window for no good reason.

One very simple example: At my company, we have to go through IT to buy anything, even if as simple as a USB memory stick. I saw the price of a 4 MB stick - in the range of $150. Could go down the road to Best Buy, Future Shop, Staples, etc and get it MUCH cheaper, but since they are not approved it is not possible. No petty cash or anything.

If anything of this sort is happening at the city, but at a much larger scale, then things definitely need to change.

[CaptainCrunch]

Agreed, and then you have to ask the question of how a one time use bridge designer would get on a single source list?

[calculoso]

Sadly from another Rick Bell column, but the Audit is out.

Meanwhile, we have rude reality, the 61-page investigation of city auditor Tracy McTaggart.
....
The auditor looks at contracts over three years where the total cost goes from $212 million to $959 million and the documentation of why these increases happen is, in many cases, “missing from the contract files.” City administration says the hikes can be chalked up to the boom.
....
The audit team goes over 26 contracts with no bids totalling $189 million and finds “insufficient evidence on file to substantiate” 22 of them.

There are purchase orders over more than $151 million without a proper paper trail.

“We concluded the city was not always able to demonstrate that best value was received for taxpayer dollars,” says the report.
....
Ald. Brian Pincott, head of the audit group, admits the city was “loosy goosey all over the place.

http://www.calgarysun.com/news/colum.../13957991.html

[CaptainCrunch]

There's not much hyperbole in there like the usual Rick Bell columns. There doesn't need to be.

The City needs to rip out its purchasing department with in the words of the auditor of parks and recreation a machete. any one who's running for election against the incumbents needs to hold up this audit and we need to get people into city hall that actually don't spend our money like drunken sailors.

The Council lied about how they handled bids on projects. If there's not documentation on contracts and purchase orders then it needs to be treated like municipal fraud.

They need to gut the machine and actually put some controls in place. And I'm not just blaming Bronco and the council, even though I don't like any of them all that much because they had to know this was going on. there's always been something smelly in how the city does business.

Whenever I got bid requests from the city I would basically toss them in the trash, there was next to no chance to win the bid unless you had a close relationship with the city. but if you had that, then money was no object.

I'm hoping that every Calgarian actually pays attention to this, and it pisses them off. This city needs fresh new leadership, not the same bunch of clowns.

[calculoso]

http://www.calgaryherald.com/enterta...991/story.html

Most of the decisions around the controversial Santiago Calatrava-designed pedestrian bridge were made by a single city staffer, who signed a contract with the architect before informing city council.
....
The Centre City plan, which calls for major infrastructure to go to a design competition, should have been followed, he said. But Pincott points out that the $2.6 million Calatrava received, which included design and engineering work, was only 10 per cent of the entire bridge project. The remaining work was put out to tender.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/enterta...053/story.html

The report also found that in many cases, awarded contracts were changed in value by as much as 50 per cent after the fact, without proper approval.
....
This report cites an external consultant in 2008 who looked at 450 contracts and found 51 per cent were sole sourced. By comparison, the City of Toronto sole sources about six per cent of its contracts.

The audit also discovered another 462 contracts within its three-year span had no quotes, tenders or request for proposals attached to them, but couldn't determine exactly how many had been sole sourced.