City Council Tables Office Furniture, Engineering Bid
Posted at: 03/08/2010 9:56 PM
By: Laura Kennedy
lkennedy@wdio.com
Duluth city councilors want to postpone purchasing thousands of dollars in office furniture.
This resolution would authorize spending just under $80,000 on new office furnishings. Chief Administrative Officer David Montgomery says there are new employees that need desks, cabinets, and other things. And the city doesn't have much furniture to spare.
Councilor Jim Stauber says the city already spent $26,000 on furnishings in January.
"I question the wisdom of spending $100,000 on office furniture when times are so difficult," said Councilor Jim Stauber. "I would ask the administrators to reconsider this."
Other councilors say they want a detailed purchase list before they'll approve it.
There was another issue the council tabled Monday night. The city wants the council to approve a contract agreement with a local engineering company, MSA Professional Services to fix five sanitary sewer lift stations. A concerned resident sent the council an email this weekend, saying MSA's $263,000 price is more than twice that of another Duluth company, LHB, Inc.
Montgomery says these proposals were evaluated on a point system which considers more factors than just cost.
"You wanna know first and foremost if they've built lift stations before," Montgomery said. "That's an important piece. Are they locally based where if you have issues, you can act more quickly? Price does matter, I'm not saying it doesn't, but it's one of many factors that matter."
There's another concern with the other proposals. Montgomery says their estimates for the number of hours needed to complete the project were too low and "not realistic."
Councilor Stauber moved to table this issue until the next meeting to give councilors time to do some more research.
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