19D - RESPONSE TO ORANGE COUNTY GRAND JURY

Home Browse Search

The Honorable Judge Kim Dunning August 16, 2010 Page 7 the requirement to identify project vision, scope and evaluation criteria. It should be noted that the RFP for the Santa Ana Street Car Project was very detailed in its description of the City's vision and expectations for work and schedule relating to the services solicited. Further, the selection criteria was clearly articulated in the RFP. Thus, we concur that RFPs should contain the information noted by the Grand Jury so that all applicants are equally informed at the onset of the process, and expectations are clearly defined. RECOMMENDATION R-2: City Council should give full consideration to the findings of the duly appointed evaluation team and publicly disclose, with justification, at a Council meeting any deviation from the team's recommendation so as not to jeopardize public confidence. RESPONSE: The recommendation has been implemented. It should be noted that the City Council is the final decision making body authorized to approve consultant and project contracts that exceed $25,000 in value. Although an evaluation panel and/or staff may make recommendations, the City Council is the final authority. City staff will continue to work together with the City Council, in the event modifications to the panel or staff recommendation are made, so that the City Council clearly articulate at a public meeting the reasons for making a different selection, if in fact they do so. With regard to this specific project, there were several public meetings during which the selection of the consultant team was discussed. The City Council Transportation Subcommittee held a meeting on March 16, 2009, at which time they interviewed the three RFP finalists. On April 20, 2009, the City Council, at their regularly scheduled public meeting, directed the City Manager to negotiate a hybrid team of qualified consultants and return to the City Council for final approval. During this same meeting, the City Council specifically directed staff to work with Cordoba Corporation, Parsons Brinkerhoff, David Evans and Associates, IBI and URS (all prime or subconsultants who submitted proposals) to undertake Step 2 of the Go Local project. The final outcome was approved at a publicly held and noticed City Council meeting on August 3, 2009 where Cordoba Corporation was given lead status and instructed to work with David Evans, URS, HNTB, and LTK in a hybrid team approach. It should be noted that Cordoba Corporation is receiving less than 37.3% of the total compensation awarded under the approved contract. RECOMMENDATION R-3: The City of Santa Ana should develop guidelines to improve the awarding of contracts to better reflect the expectations of the elected officials and direct professional staff accordingly. RESPONSE: The recommendation has been implemented. As stated in response #1, on May 3, 2010, the City Council modified its policy for the issuance of requests for proposals or qualifications to ensure that the City Council's policy direction is reflected better in the City's RFP processes. All major project and consultant service contracts will first be reviewed and approved by the City Council at a regularly scheduled City 19D-7