Council delegates tender power to CAO
By Andrew Bennett
Council has delegated authority to CAO Victor Kumar to award tender for the Columbia-Washington project after he completes negotiations and comes to an agreement with the successful bidder.
A summary of the negotiations, including the final cost, will be available for the public at the next council meeting.
Kumar presented council with two other options: 1) council shelves the project, and 2) council awards the tender itself.
In his report to council, Kumar wrote that the second option would require council to conduct the “administrative function related to the negotiations.” He added, “Council is a decision-making body and is not suited to function in administrative role.”
Delegating authority to Kumar to award tender “is to comply with the court rulings on the award of tenders and subsequent negotiations without compromising the integrity of the tender process.”
He added, “The negative impact arises in perception of transparency however the information belongs to third parties and cannot be released other than the summary.”
Three qualified bids came to the city, of which the lowest was $6,021,200, before HST, by Copcan Contracting, and the second lowest was $6,657,331 by Maglio Installations Ltd.
Kumar wrote, “The successful bidder will be chosen … in accordance with the instructions issued and the selection criteria specified in the tender documents.”
All the bids exceeded the roughly $5 million (including engineering fees and contingencies) that was estimated at the public presentation on Dec. 5, 2011.
Kumar wrote, “There was a scope of the work change relating to the pavement and sub-base/grading component and hence the tendered amount would differ from that of the amount estimated in the December 5 2011 discussion document. This tendered amount would be finalized during the negotiations with the successful bidder.”
Council voted unanimously and without discussion to delegate this authority to the CAO.
