Brown Opens Can Of Worms

One of the more interesting developments of the council meeting last night was created by Amanda Brown. When she suggested that she had a letter allegedly to the Mayor with a quote of $75/ton by CRRA, as I noted in the meeting report –I immediately though she violated something. That something is the very public Norwalk procurement guidelines. We learn from these guidelines that bids over $100k must be sealed bids.

§3-203 Competitive Sealed Request for Proposals. Any procurement of special or professional services or design-bid-build, which are in excess $10,000.00 shall be based upon competitive sealed request for proposals. The Purchasing Department shall assist the User Department The procurement of these services shall not be artificially divided so as to avoid this requirement under this Section.

Which makes the actions by Brown truly bizarre. She said on the Council floor that she had solicited a price from CRRA, but then makes reference to a letter faxed from CRRA to the Mayor about a new lower bid, she admitted that she was the one who made the contact. CRRA didn’t bid  through the RFP process, which is clear about what you can and can’t do.

(5) Receipt of Proposals. Proposals shall be opened so as to avoid disclosure of contents to competing proposers during the process of negotiation. A Register of Proposals shall be prepared in
accordance with these Procurement Guidelines, and shall be open for public inspection after
contract award.

So, no disclosure of the what the bids are, and that there must be a register of proposals that is open to the public. Brown’s actions suggest a solicitation for a bid outside the RFP process, which certainly opens up the issue of who is talking to who and attempting to influence a sealed bidding process. The interesting aspect of that is whether this constitutes an ethics violation. And that gets even more interesting since this council hasn’t appointed an ethics panel, yet, even though its July. The relevant bit:

§3-702 Reporting of Anti-competitive Practices. When for any reason collusion or other anti-competitive practices are suspected by the Purchasing Agent, or any Purchasing Agency, among any bidders or proposers, a written notice of the relevant facts shall be transmitted to the Law Department.

There’s no way that Brown, as a decision maker on a sealed bid contract, should have contacted a non bidder to obtain price information.