Correspondence - #18 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Orozco, Norma From: Curt McCalla < Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2023 3:31 PM To: eComment Cc: Kevin Gallagher; Brian Jeffers Subject: Agenda Item No. 18 - City Council & Special Housing Authority Meeting Agenda - Regular Open Meeting 5:45 PM South West Pump and Drilling Inc. (SWPD) disagrees with the city's intent to award the Washington street well project to the second low bidder Best Drilling and intend to have our attorney determine our rights. On 4/26/2023 the city of Santa Ana received from SWPD Inc its bid bond for the Washington street well bid. On 4/27/2023, before 2:00 pm South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. submitted its bid to the city of Santa Ana for the Washington street well project. South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. received confirmation from Planet bids the cities bid service provider, its bid had been received. Immediately after 2:00 pm the bid results from planet bids showed that South West Pump & Drilling, Inc's. bid was the low bid. South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. received congratulations from venders and competitors. 4/28/2023 South West Pump& Drilling, Inc. placed a call to the City of Santa Ana to collect further confirmation of the bid results. South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. left a voice mail to this effect. No response or return call from the City of Santa Ana to South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. occurred. 4/29/2023 South West Pump & Drilling, Inc. once again reached out to the City of Santa Ana for confirmation and left a second voice mail. Again, no response or return phone call was received from the City of Santa Ana. 05/01/2023—UPS delivered hard copies of the bid documents to the City of Santa Ana at 10:21 AM no call no e-mail no response concerning our inquiry. Nearly a month after the bid, 5/25/2023 SWPD sent an email to the city to please confirm the bid results and let us know what processes we need to prepare and begin the contracting process. SWPD reached out to the City of Santa Ana's consultant for the project, Richard Slade and Associates, a consultant South West Pump & Drilling, Inc has worked with numerous times in the past. They too had no contact or communications from the City of Santa Ana's staff concerning the bid. 05/31/2023—Voicemail delivered to Brian Jeffers @ 9:54 AM stated that SWPDINC was non-responsive. The city provided no proof, no documentation, no email sent to sales@swpdinc.com (the email address on file in PlanetBids). As fate would have it Mr.Jeffers was out with medical issues. Had the City done its due diligence to inform SWPD in a timely manner reasonable manner and within public works norms and allowed SWPD to demonstrated its submission was complete and SWPD would be awarded this project.The fact that SWPD's bid was not protested suggests this is true. The city is failing in its duty to provide its constituents the best product for the best price. No communication from the city, no bid protest, no rejected/ returned bid notification. There has been no indication, nor any evidence provided to SWPD Inc. that it is not the low and responsive bidder. The notice inviting bids states (page vii), Failure to provide required documents with Bid may cause the bid to be deemed non-responsive. Use of the word "may' implied that the City has a choice whether to deem a bidder non- responsive or possibly the opportunity to review the documents and processes with the apparent low bidder,to determine the responsiveness. However, SWPD was not afforded any such courtesy. Once we hit send, using a service the cities directed the bidders to use, it is SWPD Inc's position it become the city's responsibility to ensure all documents are received. SWPD has no ability to see what is or is not received after we hit send. The Instructions to Bidders for Proposal Submission (page x) states It is the BIDDER'S responsibility to ensure submittal of their Proposal on PlanetBids. The Bidders don't have control over PlanetBids and it is impossible for the Bidder to ensure submittals through the electronic submittal process. i