Travis County Commssioners Court
February 11, 2003
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Item 15
Number 15, discuss he luation committee rankings of the architectural/engineering proposals submitted for rfq no. Q030024-jj, professional engineering services for the east metro park design project, approve authorization to commence contract negotiations with the most highly qualified firm, and take appropriate action.
>> judge, commissioners, sid grimes, county purchasing agent. On this particular r.f.q., You had facilities management, roger working with us, t.n.r., My office. We had 11 proposals, we are having a real good turnout on all of our r.f.q.'s for this project. Staff ranked the firms according to the criteria in the r.f.q. And the top ranked if I were is land design studio team. And that's who we would like to move forward with, with contract negotiations.
>> also, sid, what was the -- what -- as you know, I'm always looking at participation, minority participation in our projects. Can you tell me what the minority participation is in this particular project.
>> in in all of these firms that we looked at, they all committed to 30%.
>> 30%.
>> h.u.b. Participation. Of course, after -- after we proceed with the negotiations and with the top ranked firms, we will tie down more firmly what their actual commitment is.
>> okay. And that will be coming back to us I guess --
>> we are hoping to come back in a couple of weeks.
>> in a couple of weeks?
>> three to four weeks.
>> okay.
>> there's a lot of projects in the -- in the oven right now.
>> I understand.
>> okay. With that, this is the first step I think of many step that's we have hopefully taken to get out east metro park up and running and become a reality. So with that, I would like to -- to move approval of item no. 15.
>> that's good.
>> any discussion?
>> sid tell me the name one more time, land design what?
>> studios.
>> all in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote. Hold on a second. Anybody here to -- to give comment on this item? Sorry about that. Go ahead.
>> I'm benny hawkins, chairman, c.e.o., Of [inaudible] hipg, one of the 1 -- inc., One of the 11 firms that submitted bids for the project. I appreciate the opportunity to share perhaps some considerations for our interest that were not solicited in the r.f.p. Such as the experience and so forth. I would like to point out to the court that [inaudible] remains interested in pursuing the project because of some reason that's we would only know, that is we have some commitments in the area in that we office northeast, literally we own property in the manor district and we have an investment in the community, a partnership with the community where -- where we have designed all of their major schools, the high schools, performing arts center, middle school, elementary school, I currently chair the -- the education foundation, which provides scholarships and grants to -- to all levels, prek through 12 and our firm is very interested in maintaining the partnering relationship that we have with the community there for that reason. As far as the suitability for the project is concerned, we certainly don't question the evaluations of the firm that have been selected, usually when you have 11 firms at least the top half are more than qualified to accomplish the project. We you wanted to point out that [inaudible] has never worked for the county. We are very interested in establishing the same relationship here that we have established with federal stat, city, many school district clients where we have done 10 projects or more in places such as the Austin independent school district or the state, Round Rock, so forth. Of course the only way they ever get started is to do this project. As far as having the minority participation is concerned, we have a team that has -- has some household participants such as jason quintanilla, jose guerra, so forth, to where we easily meet with our subconsultants 30% or more of the participation, of course [inaudible] is a minority owned firm, such that I believe the way the practice usually go with the prime firm is minority, even though we do have anglo owned participation on our team, also. I think the way that it usually works is all of the dollars end up being presented as minority entity. I would like to just close out by saying that we would not have pursued this project if we did not feel that we could do the job is because we have not even pursued some other projects with the county because we didn't feel that we were as qualified to pursue them as we were in this case. We have done so many softball fields and soccer field and centers and concession stand, over a billion dollars worth of educational recreational type of facilities that have occurred in the history of the firm, including all around facilities that you all are familiar with, such as [inaudible] high school, del valle high school, starting point in lago vista, neighborhood center, so forth. To where there's nothing in this proposal that we can do, do well, we wanted to let you know that we are extremely interested in it. If you would like to take into consideration some of the merit that's again were not solicited in the proposal, it's our obligation to make you aware of those. I was chosen last year of the advocate of the year for minority business by the central south Texas minority business council because of my efforts to try to increase opportunities for minorities. Even though during that three year period that I served I didn't make one cent off of getting any opportunities myself. So for reasons that include qualifications and things that I have just mentioned, I respectfully ask you that give consideration to that before you finalize the award. Thank you.
>> uh-huh.
>> thank you. Sid, if you can,sy hear what mr. Hawkins is saying, there I know this is just the commencing of contract negotiations. However, if -- die know that we -- die know that -- I do know that for the firms that are looking at this, they may be committed to this 30 mers%, even -- 30%, even higher, there will be final numbers coming up as far as two weeks as far as what their participation level will actually entail. So in other words I guess there's still room for what mr. -- mr. Hawkins had brought before us and I just wanted to make sure that we include as many folks as possible in this project. That's basically what I'm suggesting.
>> any more discussion? Anybody else on this item? All in favor of the motion? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM