05/01/2001 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Council Minutes of 5/1/2001 2) Jim Burns, 3978 Dover Center Road. • Believes Ordinance 2001-46 will lend itself to limiting the bidders that will bid on contracts with the city and will also create a problem with consistency with enforcement. He has problems with the one requirement that says a certified financial statement may be required. Since the city's bid limit is $15,000 and above, this could be just for replacement of sidewalks, etc. because that's an improvement to real estate. A lot of the contractors who do that type of work are not required to have a certified financial statement. They probably won't be willing to do so because it would be half the cost or more of the contract itself in order to get that accomplished. Another provision says "disclosure of any litigation in which the bidder has been named as defendant or third party defendant in any action involving a claim for personal injury or wrongful death." All you have to be is sued. It doe~'t mean you did it because all it says is `~-amed as a defendant." Iu this day and age, anybody can be sued for any reason at any time. The legislation calls for disclosure of allegations of violations of prevailing wage law and other labor laws and of any criminal convictions or criminal indictments involving the bidder, its officers, directors, owners or managerial employees. Allegations do not mean anything was proven. A conviction could be for a traffic offense. He believes this goes far beyond current requirements. The current requirements were there so that it would open up bids to more people and not put their dirty laundry or presumed dirty laundry in the public record, because a bid does become a public record. Section D states, "The director shall make recommendations to the Board of Control with respect to the responsibility of every bidder whose bid is not otherwise disqualified or rejected." Mrs. Kasler said in her comments that "compliance at discretion of the administration." This means that every bid is not going to be looked at the same way. The ordinance needs: 1) to be less all-encompassing in what it's asking for; 2) to provide some process where the entire Board of Control is going to be able to evaluate all these disclosures that are presented in these bids. He asked that Council not to pass the legislation or that the Mayor veto it. Mrs. Kasler replied that, as a Councilperson and a resident of North Olmsted, when a contractor comes in to do work in the city, she wants to know about the dirty laundry. The fact that this expands the required information to protect the city against contractors that are not going to do quality work or perhaps present other more serious problems by their very presence, is the purpose of the ordinance. She said the key word mentioned was "disclosure." This is not at all uncommon. These requirements are not anything that are overly demanding or should make anyone uncomfortable in any way. The discretion comes in when the administration looks at the allegations. If a person or contractor has only one allegation (for example, one prevailing wage violation), and they look at it and realize that it had no basis and it was only one time and that is the limit of the problem, they can determine it was not significant and the applicant has complied. However, if there are ten or twenty allegations, proven or not, they may have another view of ft. It has to be left open wide enough for the director or the administration to take a look at each situation and evaluate on a broader basis. The fact that it is required of the bidder initially was extremely intentional. This provides consistency so that every bidder knows what is expected. They all know what they need and what is required of them Each 7