Travis County Commissioners Court
August 21, 2007
Item 19
>> 19, my note says Commissioner Davis would like to discuss this in executive session. The sun coast thing.
>> I have a couple of legal questions. I guess since I have them here I can maybe get some answers.
>> you wanted to discuss in executive session, right?
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> then let's call it up. 19, approve contract award for gasoline and diesel fuel, ifb number b 070285 ld to the low responsive bidder, sun coast resources.
>> I guess what I'm trying to understand is in this bid that we received, can you explain to me did all of the vendors, the 16 vendors, did they all respond to this particular bid request?
>> Commissioner --
>> did they all respond to all the items on the bid request dism.
>> we issued the i.f.b. To 16 vendors and received two bids. One of the bidders was non-responsive because he made errors in his bid and we can't let him make corrections to that. Sun coast resources was the overall low bidder. We did contact three other vendors and asked them why they did not respond. One said they were short staffed, they were too busy to bid on this one. Another person said that they don't know why they bid. They think they just missed it. Another bidder said they had a family emergency and they also missed the bid submitting deadline. Sun coast resources did provide the overall lowest bids to us.
>> let me ask this question.
>> [inaudible] really look at this thoroughly and I'm still not comfortable with it. I know there's a time line on this according to what the docket is saying, August 27th, and it would go effect to August '08. So my concern though is that it refers to item line 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 as far as the person that was not awarded, travellers petroleum, was not awarded because they didn't respond to --
>> they made a mistake in their bid.
>> because it didn't say.
>> they said that they misbid it and they would like to withdraw their bid. They said they didn't understand it and they just --
>> why didn't they understand it?
>> they didn't read it right.
>> okay. Was it that ambiguous or was it pretty straightforward? Because I see that sun coast only responded to six of the eight items. So they -- according that what I'm seeing here, and if I'm incorrect, you correct me. But it appears they reported on -- there was eight items, I guess, eight line items that they are supposed to respond to, and they only reported on six of them. So if they didn't respond to the total eight, then would that make them responsive? Also or not responsive? Because I thought there was eight items here. You have one company that made some errors, I don't know what the errors were, I really don't know, I haven't seen it. But then you have another company that comes in and responds to six of eight items. So what is the deal on that because it appears that in some of the stuff they were low, the travelers petroleum folks were low, and it's kind of confusing to me because I'm trying to see how and why they were kicked out and all items were not bidded on even on the person who received the lowest bid. Can you explain it to me?
>> I'm going to have to look at it, Commissioner. What I'm looking at, they did bid all eight items and they are low bides. On the items they did bid correctly compared to -- I mean to petroleum, sun coast was lower. So even if petroleum traders would have done it correctly on the items that were correct, they were not the low bidder. Sun coast was. And I have to get clarification --
>> I'm not interpreting that. It doesn't read the same way and I've asked staff to go through it also. It's kind of confusing the way it's written out. You are referring to line items on the front page. Then on the back of this you are saying items. I don't know what's an item and I don't know what's a line item.
>> well, for example, on the very first one, you are bidding gasoline transport truck deliveries. And then on the second one it's just the gasoline less the delivery charge. And then we've got a number 3, we've got the diesel, the ultra low sulphur diesel transported. So I'm not sure --
>> I'm going to have to have more time on this. Would that interfere with any --
>> no, I don't think the bid expires until --
>> okay, I would like to have courtesy, judge. There's a lot of ambiguity, judge.
>> no problem. If we take another week that will be fine?
>> yes. The only other thing --
>> it's not just --
>> [inaudible] john, I guess as far as legal concern, I'll just withdraw the legal question until I get a handle on this stuff.
>> the bid tab is hard to read. I would have to pull the bid out and look at each line and give you a better explanation.
>> it's just not clear.
>> the other thing I would just advise the court of, this is one of the bids that we do include the safety questionnaire. And we did send the information over to t.n.r., and these folks had some minor violations. They all had to do with failure to insure current certificates. Tceq considers these minor violations and there were no corrective actions required on these orders. So their errors were more in the administration of the paperwork and getting their certificates.
>> and it would be good to know why the bidder on line 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 had errors in those particular line items. I would like to know what those line items and what were the errors, if possible. And maybe there was some misunderstanding in the language. I don't really know what the reason for the errors of them submitting something and they are a company that supplies the particular services that Travis County needs and errors were assessed to the bid request. So I'm kind of in left field. So I can wait though, but I'd like to have some answers in between here and next week.
>> week get you some answers.
>> thank you very much.
>> and the court always has the right to reject all the bids and start over.
>> that's what I wanted to talk to legal about.
>> you all have that option.
>> we'll have it back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 18:30 AM