Bid protest Megascapes and Sunbelt SOD award

1:38:49Good morning. Carrie Roberts, Purchasing Director for the County. I am here to address the bid protest decision by County Administrator to Megascapes Landscape and Maintenance Inc. award to Sunbelt SOD and Grading Company of bid number IFB SN22-171 as needed SOD multiple year award, no funding required.

1:39:16Oh, thank you. All right. The um the bid originally opened on 8.2 of 22. We received one bid from Sunbelt Sad and Grading, Karen referred to as Sunbelt. On 816 of 22, we issued the notice of attempt to award. On 822 of 22, Megascapes Landscape and Maintenance, here and referred to as Megascapes, protested the award. On 829 of 22, the County Administrator denied Megascapes protest. On 913-22, we know issued

1:39:47a notice of intent to reject all bids. On 915 of 22, Sunbelt rejected that notice of intent to reject. On 112 of 22, we began negotiations with Sunbelt. On 1112 of 22, we revised the notice of intent to award. On 1129 of 22, Megascapes submitted a second protest. And on 1215 of 22, the County Administrator denied that second protest. Yeah. The first protest from Megasapes, which was received on August 22nd, 22,

1:40:18the protest was received timely. In that protest, they stated that they did not bid. However, if they had bid, their prices would have been significantly lower than Sunbelt. The county's response was that the county administrator denied that protest. protest saying that Megascapes did not have standing to protest and that they as they were not an interested party to the bid.

1:40:40On September 15th, um Sunbelt protested. Uh in between these two dates, we did issue a the notice to reject, which Sunbelt then protested. So their S their protest stated that they would be at a disadvantage if we rebid because their prices had been submitted with the original notice of potential award. The county response was that we concurred with Sunbelt's protest letter. The purchasing department was then asked to negotiate with Sunbelt as allowed for by the purchasing ordinance. Through that negotiation, we did obtain lower prices and

1:41:10we did obtain a three-year firm pricing from Sunbelt. We issued a subsequent notice of potential award for the second round and we received a second protest on November 29th from Megascapes. They reiterated their claim regarding them their prices being lower. They claimed that they did have the right to protest as a quote perspective bidder. They stated that purchaser not meeting the responsibilities to minimize the expenditures for the county by awarding to Sunbelt. The county's response was to deny the protest.

1:41:41We also explained the term perspective bidder applied only to solicitation protests, not to award protest. Megascape, we felt, is not an interested party to the protest. And we explained that not only does the purchasing director have the award the responsibility to minimize expenditures, but also has the responsibility to ensure the integrity of the procurement process and not just minimize the expenditures there. Our recommendation is that the board upholds the decision by the county administrator to deny the protest by Megascape Landscape per the purchasing ordinance. We

1:42:11will ha we have both vendors here to speak. Megascapes will be given chance to speak and then Sunbelt will be given a chance to speak as well.

1:42:17Okay.

1:42:21Actually it was ten minutes.

1:42:28Good morning. Good morning. Charles Graham, uh here on behalf of Megascape's Landscape. commissioners. Um the timeline is Absolutely. what I had essentially prepared as well. Um O one thing that I would add to it uh is that on the thirteenth We were advised by telephone by. Ms. Roberts, and I'd I'd like to start by commending Ms. Roberts, Mr. Carbella, uh and everyone else that I've spoken with at the county, uh, for

1:42:58their professionalism throughout what's been sort of a lengthy and and somewhat tedious process, but nonetheless, uh thank you. to to both of you for your professionalism. We we were advised on the thirteenth, the date of the issuance of the rejection of all bids, and I I might point out that it's a sole bid, a single bid. Um that's a good idea. uh verbally Ms. Roberts indicated during that conversation, she asked me uh two things. One, um, would we meet the Uh

1:43:28I I should add for the benefit of the of the board, we are the current contract holder, uh have been for the last two years. We hold an additional four contracts with Pasco. One of those contracts also includes the provision of SOD at PASCO, uh pardon me, at uh Starkey Boulevard Nalico Pass on US 19. We're placing SOD and doing uh maintenance and landscape. for the county there. Um So uh we were told uh on the thirteenth in that telephone conversation

1:43:59that all bids would be rejected. And in fact they were subsequently on that date, as Ms. Roberts indicated, the notice of rejection of all bids was issued. We were also told during that conversation that the project would be rebid. uh because of the size it was pointed out and to give you a um to give the board um uh a concept of the amount of monies involved, the uh our annual Cost under this contract was around $500,000. The last award was for $500,000.

1:44:30uh four thousand dollars per year. for the two-year existing contract. Um the first bid submitted by Sunbelt was for $750,000, a very, very substantial increase. And again, it was a sole bid. Um on May the thirteenth, we were aware that this was coming up for rebid. on May the thirteenth, two thousand. twenty-two, well before this solicit solicitation was opened, I personally opened an Excel spreadsheet entitled SOD RE

1:45:00BID WORK SHEET. Um and that has been submitted to the county. Um we actually were I was actually able to lower our Prospective bid in anticipation of this bid being issued. Um, I was actually able to lower our Annual cost from the $504,000 under the old existing contract to a $496,000. bid. So that again that the commission will understand that this $750,000 bid received by Sunbelt

1:45:31was a very, very large increase.

1:45:36I prepared this in advance of the issuance of the solicitation, which I believe was in June. Is that correct? I have it on my time on here somewhere.

1:45:46So May thirteenth I began to prepare the bid in order to submit it. Um I don't have the date exactly of the issuance, but uh you know you're looking at the person who made the human error of overlooking. The while watching on the bid net direct system that the county uses for these bids. I kept looking for it daily. weekly and I did not see it. I believe because of that time of the year you get a large number of bids at one time that come in or solicitations I should say that it rolled past the

1:46:16first page. We called and missed it. We didn't see it. It's human error. Um I kept anticipating that I knew that it was coming up, you know, during this season, this this this time of the year last year, and uh finally placed a call to the purchasing department and realized to my horror that like three days earlier it had closed. Um and so we had fully intended to submit a bid. We have an affidavit to that effect. So uh the county's position in in the denial of our appeal, among

1:46:46other things, has been stated. Words to the effect that you know that we were just someone the county is concerned that someone uh anybody could just call up or That's not, I don't think, a completely fair representation of our of our position. We are the existing contract holder and by definition. We were a little bitter. Um The county is indicating no there's not any obligation the county to notify us of that upcoming bid. True enough, although I believe it's in the county's best interests. And I'd

1:47:17like to make among the recommendations we're going to make to the count to the commission today is that the county take a look at making that a policy. Um Uh I know that I I I meant to print it out. I didn't I didn't have the time this morning, but They There is a list on the county purchasing website of all of the term contracts. Um be they a year or more in which various vendors provide ongoing services and goods to the county. And it it's a number of pages. at

1:47:48maybe 20 lines per page. So we're talking literally over a hundred of these term contracts of a year or more in length. Mm.

1:47:59The county in my opinion what and I go I'll go ahead and make the recommendation. This is not just a one-off, I don't think. I think that there are probably instances where It by definition, the the current low bidder, the current contract holder should be notified as a matter of policy.

1:48:17Um I believe that that it it's in the county's best interest financially in the taxpayers best interest. What we're talking about here is the bid that we would have submitted, and if the county rebids this as we believe that it should. Um You know, the county has evidence before it that's a good thing. Uh I had prepared a bed and then I was a little bit more than a little of four hundred ninety six thousand per year. The county has before it today. a recommendation to award five hundred and eighty thousand. I further further analyzed the actual use by the Department

1:48:47of Public Works of this PSOD. We're talking about grass. Um And uh they're they're not gonna meet that five hundred eighty th five thousand dollar budget at the proposed prices by Sunbelt. the county and to to Ms. Robert's credit, they have acted to reduce by negotiating to reduce the county's cost, but I don't believe they've met the requirements under the purchasing ordinance. to minimize that cost. The county has substantial evidence before it that should it, as I believe the the commission

1:49:17should rebid this this this this license, that the county will receive a bid slightly under $500,000 for this for this um for this service. Thank you. Any questions?

1:49:34I'll make a comment.

1:49:34Yes, ma'am, please. Ms. Star.

1:49:37As much as I would love to pay less money and I'm not an attorney. But if you don't bid you don't bid and there was only one bidder and that's If you're not going to be able to I can't imagine that we would go down this path of I've thrown out a bit because someone missed the bidding.

1:50:01Someone could just come along and say, Hey, we we we would have bid less. Points well taken. But again, we're not just someone off the street that happened to see this. We are the current contract holder.

1:50:14But

1:50:14I

1:50:14don't I don't think I think we have to be fair to everybody. Sure, sure.

1:50:21Yes, ma'am.

1:50:22When I heard you were protesting because

1:50:30Right, right, right.

1:50:31Uh you know, my reading of the ordinance uh says that the county's not obligated to award any single bidder a contract. In fact Uh I don't uh The County Attorney may be familiar with exactly where it's at. I must confess I'm a little more con familiar with the ordinance than I'd like to be, having spent a few hundred hours on it the last few months. But it it clearly it is clearly stated in the ordinance that uh the county is not it it has is fully within its rights to reject any bid.

1:50:59And

1:50:59it's

1:51:00fully within its rights to accept any bid.

1:51:02That's that's right. That's right. Absolutely is. But um it also says in the ordinance that that the county has an obligation and a duty. to minimize expenditures. And you know that that has not been accomplished here. The county has considerable evidence before it including an affidavit and a spreadsheet that I had prepared that will save the taxpayers of this county. Somewhere between three hundred and fifty and four hundred and fifty thousand dollars over the next three years. Commissioner Weightman, Thank you. I'll go to Commissioner Oakley. I'm sorry, what's

1:51:32your name?

1:51:33Charles Graham. Mr. Cram? Yes, sir. Yeah It pains me to see a Pasco based business. Pasco first, right? Not receive an award. Participate, receive an award. Very familiar with with bid processes and past life. We have to uphold. the integrity of this process. And this is a situation, you know From my understanding looking into it, 'cause Pasco

1:52:03based business, I want our Pasco based businesses to win.

1:52:11I don't think there's any coming back when you pull the bid specs. after the due date. Human error happens. The bid pro any bid process, especially in government, depending on what platform you use is clunky. It's in my experience, no matter what, it's it's kind of a it's kind of a pain. It's not necessarily always user friendly and I've talked to Mr. Breitenbach about it and You know There's a human factor, there's a platform factor, there's a submittal factor, there's some subjectivity based on scoring. This

1:52:41is one of those situations that

1:52:45You know, I think that's a good idea. You just missed it. And the fact that if we have a vendor come up after the fact and say, hey, we you we know what a what the a competitive Some more business. puts out there and then you come out and say, here's what we can do I think it it muddies up the process and this is just an unfortunate instance where We w the the process needs to You know f follow what what we have have going on here. Um

1:53:16as far as you know the courtesy in having staff remind our folks, hey, your your bid's coming out. I appreciate that sentiment. But when we have so many procurements coming out, I think there's a duty. It's your business. It's how you're making your money. that that business be laser focused and know the terms of their contract and when your bid comes up and hey we need to be ready For this procurement, we need to have our due diligence done ahead of time, be ready to have our QA when that process comes up within it. We

1:53:46we were. But you said you're not going to be able to do

1:53:50You were but you weren't. We were but we missed it.

1:53:52Yes. And you know I It stinks. Y'all are a Pasco based business. Um sounds like you do a good business. You have several contracts with the county. From my understanding, I think the county is is sufficiently satisfied with the work you all provide. To the best of my knowledge, yes sir. Um But but based on on the process, I think this board we have to support staff in this issue and uphold uphold this process. And Um you know it's it's It's just unfortunately

1:54:24one of those situations uh that I don't necessarily

1:54:32We we need to switch switch

1:54:33direction here. So

1:54:35Uh

1:54:35well uh y you know I don't want to take it too much then my time maybe about expired at this point, but um you know my recommendations are threefold and then I'll sit down and you know let you guys make your your decision. Um

1:54:48If I could, let me let me get to Commissioner Oakley. You want to ask you to do that.

1:54:59now would be the appropriate time. If you want to Explain your vote. Let's hear from the

1:55:10The second vendor who is here who has gotten the award And then you can you all can discuss how you're gonna vote.

1:55:19But he may not need to even speak. That's okay. No, we should no

1:55:23we need to hear from everybody.

1:55:24I can do that. I just

1:55:25but no just don't express it. I've been business and you get bids and Usually you try to have more bids than one. If you only get one bed and you have to go forward with your job You accept that bid and go forward.

1:55:39Okay. So do you have any direct questions? We'll we'll we'll do discussion after, but do you have any direct questions? No. Okay.

1:55:45I'm

1:55:45I'm just gonna ask one question. I don't understand why they Didn't bid,

1:55:48but yeah. It's simple oversight, uh Chairman Oakley. We didn't we didn't see it as it rolled over the computer screen. We were ready for it. I was looking for it. I mean you're talk you're you're talking to the person who made the oversight. To be clear. Okay. And I and I appreciate your acknowledging that. So

1:56:04just one question.

1:56:05Yes.

1:56:06With the work you have contracts with us right now that are in place?

1:56:09Uh yes, sir. As a matter of fact, we've been continuing to provide SOD over the last six months to the county. under our other contract, which is the horticulture contract that we um use to maintain and landscape the property at Starkey Boulevard and Aleco Pass and also at US 19. Um we've continued to provide those services at a greatly much at a much But because it also contains provisions. For Bahia and Saint Augustine side,

1:56:39which is what this contract is exclusively is about grass on the side of the roads. Um So we had that additional contract that's still in place and the county has been using

1:56:50Is

1:56:51that contract

1:56:51is does that contract continue or does it end at

1:56:53the

1:56:53same time?

1:56:54Yes, we we have we've have an order right now on our books to do work for the county. And

1:56:58how long

1:56:58does that run?

1:57:03How long does that contract run? Uh I believe it runs through this con you know until the fiscal year of October of this year.

1:57:10Okay.

1:57:11Um, you know, I might I might add that we, you know, we we offered to continue interim pricing. Uh you know, back and and Sunbelt apparently was not willing to do so. So

1:57:22Commissioner Braffitt, do you have a question?

1:57:24No?

1:57:25Okay.

1:57:25All right.

1:57:28Could I close with just my recommendations and then I'll have a seat? Or yeah. I mean obviously we'd we we believe it's in the county's best interest to capture the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars uh on behalf of the taxpayers by rebidding the contract. Um additionally, uh it it would seem to me that it would be in the county's best interest if there is a concern about Um the bids closing and then someone objecting. Um that you know possibly an amendment to the

1:57:58ordinance could the uh the i th that's not what the ordinance says regarding the protests. It does in fact say that prospective bidders Us. Um May protest an award. It's right there in the four corners. That's your interpretation, sir. Well, no, I mean it's it's it's there. All right. Quote unquote. But uh you know, I would recommend the county might want to amend that if there's concern about future occurrences like this. Okay. Um okay. Thank you, Sean.

1:58:32And I'll sund belt.

1:58:36Well we're not getting the commissioner items.

1:58:39Good morning. Good morning. Commissioner Weightman.

1:58:42Good morning. My name is Danielle Silva. This is Leslie. We are with Sunbelt SOD. We just want to thank you for your time this morning, your consideration of this matter. Just tell you a little bit about ourselves. We are a small family-owned and operated business. We've been in the sod industry specializing in sod. For 25 years now we specialize in local municipality work, DOT work. So this is what we do day in and day out. We hold other SOD contracts with the county. We currently hold the Bermuda

1:59:12contract for the Parks Department, I believe. and the um school board as well. So we are well versed in working with the county. Just want to say that we have been doing bids via the SEAL bid process since the late nineties, early two thousands. And, you know, we appreciate the upholding of the integrity of the process and, you know, your consideration on the matter.

1:59:37What do

1:59:38I have?

1:59:39Any questions?

1:59:42Well it's just gonna be interesting. When when does this bid come up again? Is it a three year bid? Is that what I heard?

1:59:51Yes, ma'am, you awarded the contract for a three year period at the last meeting. I

1:59:55don't like well thank you. Where and where are you located?

1:59:58We're in Ruskitton, so we're in Hillsborough County.

2:00:00The Hospital. Okay.

2:00:02Thank you.

2:00:05Okay. Go ahead.

2:00:08Unless you have any questions for me, we would like to recommend that you uphold the award that was made at the last meeting.

2:00:14One question for you. The previous bid he mentioned was like a two year long bid. Any reason we went to three years on this one?

2:00:20The county the standard contract is typically three years. Um some of the multi-year awards in the past have been for two years, but we are trying to standardize on a three-year with two one-year renewals. So we took opportunity to try to start that standardization with this contract this year.

2:00:34Okay.

2:00:38Do with the with the renewals with SOD, are there? Index with price increases on the extensions or the prices whole firm? Yes, sir. What index do you have to do?

2:00:46This one does not have a this contract that we just entered into does not have extensions. It's a three-year flat. The previous ones also were for two years flat, did not have extensions. But for future reference, we would tie extensions to CPI indexes and so forth depending on the project.

2:01:02I just encourage appropriate index for appropriate industry. Um Uh we talk about that later, but thank thank you. Yes,

2:01:12sir. Well I'm gonna move recommendation of the discussion going if we could.

2:01:19Mr. Brafford? Mr. Chair, uh It's unfortunate that we're here at this position, but uh uh mistake was made. They acknowledged it. Um big came in. County played by the rules? Uh and I think that uh Because of that. Uh we should uh Support the uh Uphold the decision by the county administrator. And

2:01:50um

2:01:55It's also important that Transparency is very, very important in this process. Everybody knows what's going on. But when a mistake is made, Someone takes responsibility for that. Gentleman came up here and took responsibility for that. And uh I think we should support our county administrator.

2:02:18So let me ask a First of all, I think we do need to put a policy in place, though not binding us, so then case we Don't get get it out there. But we should be notifying I don't think not only the people that have a current bid o on the contract But the people had bid on the previous contracts too.

2:02:38I agree, Jeremy.

2:02:40Please hold. Um I I also think that we should look at um Uh the font size as far as what we're using for that thing. I mean When we look at a bid tabulation, you g I gotta put my glasses on to to see that stuff. Um sometimes you're gonna blow up the picture, right? So yeah I think that could be easier so people don't miss these things. Um I'll just I'm just gonna touch to one question. I know sometimes we've had a coup a couple of bids that come in that were extremely high. Right. And

2:03:10there were just one bitter. And we've rejected that bid.

2:03:13Yes, sir.

2:03:15This one here came in h a lot higher. Yes, sir. And you negotiated

2:03:21Yes, sir.

2:03:23That's the one crux I have trouble with. You had the flexibility to reject if you chose Instead you just started negotiating. And that's the one issue.

2:03:34They negotiated during

2:03:35a protest period.

2:03:37Which

2:03:38is

2:03:38okay.

2:03:39That the the vendor protested the rejection of all bids. and then were willing to bring their prices down And the purchasing director thought it was in the best interest to to award. That's different than a You've got one bidder, it's high. they bring it to the board to reject all bids. Mm-hmm. It does. Yeah. It does. Because yeah, now

2:04:08they they took a procedure they could do and they went their

2:04:11way. So Um I think you ha you you in the process you always have the the ability to reject all bids. But in this particular case where the r rejection was protested And the purchasing director felt That Based on the protest, based on the reduction of price, it was It was better to the you know you also have Public works. needing a product. And

2:04:41so for the efficiency of the county for the to move the county forward it the purchasing director and her you know, in her role decided this was the best move for the county.

2:04:51Okay. So you had your flexibility, you made a decision. We looked at it, we approved at the last meeting. Um I'll say l let's

2:04:59Move

2:05:00promotion. Second. Yeah. Any further discussion? I'll just say it's an unfortunate situation, but I think we gotta we gotta stand by the process. Um And hopefully we'll make some improvements. in future things with purchasing. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

2:05:17Thank you.