Your City Council Report
For December 14, 2010
By Katy "ADQ" Miessner
12/15/10
The big news from what looked to be an uneventful evening was the announced retirement of Finance Director Rob Stout (12/31) and resignation of Assistant Finance Director Susan Mayer (mid-January, to become the Finance Director for the City of Stockton).
The City Council owes an incredible debt to this Finance Team. Regardless of the snide comments and at times unconcealed disdain the council majority had for the Finance Team, it was the Finance Team of Stout/Mayer that saved the Council’s you-know-what’s. Finance’s unassailable conclusion that the City’s general fund was bankrupt protected the City Council and the City itself. Susan Mayer’s unflappable testimony in bankruptcy court was a significant factor in the ruling from Judge McManus that Vallejo was indeed truly bankrupt—and she was up against the cross examination of some of the highest paid lawyers the unions could buy.
Who Should Mow the Lawns at Hiddenbrooke? Or shall we just get down in the weeds?
Big item of the night—pulled from consent calendar—was deciding which company should be hired to maintain the Hiddenbrooke Landscape Maintenance district. There were no speakers from Hiddenbrooke, and given that they are an outspoken group who follows the issues, the choice must not have been high on their priority list.
At issue was the choice of New Image Landscape Co of Benicia over Solano Diversified Services (SDS) of Vallejo. SDS—which employs retired City Arborist Joe Bates and also hires developmentally disabled folks—was the lowest bidder. But according to the City Staff they were “unresponsive,” meaning that they were not able to provide proof that they had the qualifications required by the City. It seems that they didn’t have the required “Public Works” experience, but from the perspective of SDS, this required experience was ill-defined in the bid announcement and SDS contended that they do have it, and provided a recommendations from CalTrans—a client of theirs—as proof.
What I found most interesting about the discussion was the back and forth between staff and council about the potentiality of lawsuits. Staff warned council that that if council chose to hire SDS, the next lowest bidder was apt to sue, because SDS was not really the “most responsive”. And yet it was staff, describing SDS’s lack of what they deemed as enough public works experience, which seemed to be giving the next lowest contractor fodder for that lawsuit. Some of the confusion seems to have stemmed from a vague description in the bidder’s package of what constituted Public Work experience. Apparently in newer bid solicitations, this has been corrected.
Brown and Hannigan concluded that they preferred City Staff’s recommendation to hire New Image, as staff had made due diligence in their review of the proposals. Schivley, Sunga and Wilson thought that SDS’s proposal met the requirements of Public Works and that SDS’s other experience made them eligible. SDS is also a Vallejo business and they voiced preference to hire locally.
There was about an hour of discussion. In the end, they needed four votes to 1) award the contract to New Image as staff recommended or 2) award the contract to SDS or 3) reject all bids and start over (of course, with the “Public Works” experience more clearly defined this time around).
It was more difficult to garner the four votes needed because Mayor Davis had to recuse himself (he’s a resident of Hiddenbrooke) and Councilmember Gomes was absent excused.
The first vote, to award SDS as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, failed with only three yes votes (Schivley, Sunga & Wilson) – the two no’s were Brown & Hannigan.
The second vote, to award New Image as the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, failed with only two yes votes Brown & Hannigan – the three no’s were Schivley, Sunga & Wilson.
Councilmember Schivley suggested the vote be continued to January when Gomes is back. City Manager Phil Batchelor suggested the contract be re-advertised and rebid since he thought the eventual vote would also be a statement.
But council, not wanting staff to go through the rigmarole of re-advertising and rebidding, voted 5-0 to continue to January when Gomes is there to vote.
Other stuff:
Council member Schivley presented a Certificate of appreciation to California Maritime Academy via their president, Bill Eisenstadt. Eisenstadt shared that Schivley was the first person he met when he came to Vallejo, and he describes Vallejo as a college town with our three campuses (CMA, Touro, Solano College). He hopes to see the three entities work better for the city in the future than in they have in the past.
Truck Routes were on the consent calendar, and as a result of efforts from Councilmember Hannigan, trucks are no longer allowed to commute through Vallejo on certain surface streets.
The Marine World Joint Powers Authority met to pass a small issue and which prompted Schivley to ask why the entity even exists anymore. Interesting response from City Attorney Nagel: A right of way with Caltrans hasn’t been resolved. Caltrans owns a parcel over there and has refused to simply sell it (or give it?) to Vallejo; they want the city to bid against others. The City disagrees with this, and Caltrans has to date refused to do anything. And, if Vallejo dissolves the Authority, and then the CalTrans issue comes up for a vote, there won’t be an entity to vote on it!
Council Goals and Objectives were officially delayed to a yet to be named date in order to “allocate [the] City's scarce resources”. Schivley took the opportunity to remind the others that Council in its goal setting wanted to establish priorities, but other things seem to jump ahead. For instance, relaxing the 1000 foot rule for alcohol sales has recently come up, jumping ahead of the smoke-shop ordinance that has been discussed for three (I think four!) years.
And with wishes for safe and happy holiday from Soley & Schivley, that concludes the final City Council Report of 2010!!!
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