Travis County Commissioners Court
June 9, 2009,
Item 9
9.
approve contract award for boat, boat motor and marine component maintenance repairs-time and materials, ifb no.
b090201nb, to the sole bidder, lake lbj marineland.
mr.
reeferseed has a question, I believe.
>> I'm sorry.
i have one simple question.
why was it -- what -- I'm sorry.
i'm ronnie reeferseed.
with my one single question on this item, that is that it's a sole bidder and from my limited experience in the business world, a sole bidder means that you are not getting the best price and I'm wondering why are we limited to a sole bidder.
are they the only that bothered or has the capabilities to do this.
>> they were the only bidder that responded to our bid.
we went back and asked two others who were invited but didn't bid they said they were -- one was outside of our service area, the other vendor did not supply boating parts or maintenance.
>> oh, okay, I was just curious about that.
just in passing, is this the only one that's -- of these -- I missed the chance to speak the at other ones, this the only one that was the sole bidder in these purchasing items or -- is that -- is that the norm.
>> yes.
it's the only one posted today that's a sole bidder.
>> okay, that's great.
thank you for your input.
>> uh-huh.
>> I had a couple of questions.
at first blush, I apologize for not having the time to check out in advance.
the question I have that to me begs an answer from the purpose of efficiency is kingsland and the distance that it takes to -- to take equipment up there, have it serviced, who is doing it, is that -- and because of the manpower and time that it takes, would it behoove us to look for more local solutions to this?
>> we have looked for more local solutions.
in the past we've had trouble getting anybody to bid at all on this.
i think lake l.b.j.
has been our contractor for the last two contracts I think.
for a while at least.
before that we were going to waco to get bids.
we've had trouble getting anybody in this area interested in working with the county for some reason.
>> do we know why?
have they given us reasons.
>> they have too much of their own business and don't want to -- boating repairs, it's a big business and they get -- they are able to charge more money, I think, to private customers than they are to the county.
>> we factored in the amount of the cost of personnel and time cost to go to kingsland, we might be able to pay more.
>> I think most of the time they come to the county to do the repairs.
it's not going -- most of the time they come to the county to the lakes to do the repairs instead of the boats going to them.
i would have to have somebody in the sheriff's office to verify that, but I think that's probably the case.
>> have we talked about -- has there been any discussion in looking at fleet maintenance to see if they could possibly provide the services?
>> not to my knowledge.
i would have to verify that, also.
i don't know that anybody in t.n.r.
is qualified to do that.
>> don ward, director of road maintenance and fleet services.
currently we don't have any boat technicians to do this sort of repair.
that doesn't mean it couldn't be done.
what we would really need to have is a certified technician and boat repair, an f.t.e.
to do this.
we do have the facility right there at mansfield dam and the west service center, very convenient to the lakes.
i believe currently there's 10 boats that the county operates six with the sheriff's department for the parks department.
so we do have the facility nearby.
it would require having a certified mechanic, specifically in -- in boat maintenance repair.
>> could we postpone this a week?
how pressing is this contract?
>> we've got a week.
>> I would like the --
>> courtesy.
>> uh-huh.
>> one week courtesy request?
>> thank you.
>> okay.
this is the $15,000 a year item.
>> in the past we have spent about 15,000 a year.
it -- in the past 12 months.
you never know.
>> so far the certified tech -- so for a certified technician, what kind of annual funds would be required.
>> judge, I can get you that answer.
i wasn't really prepared to do a little research on that.
but the -- you know, there's other things that this mechanic could also do, which I think in this budget year we asked for three additional.
we got one.
so when the guy is not doing boat repair he certainly could supplement the other needs that fleet services has.
>> or do just the opposite.
>> just the opposite.
>> take the car mechanic and give him additional training.
>> right, we do have some employees that have boats out there.
and certainly we could work something out.
>> we'll have it back on next week.
thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:41 PM