La Alcaldesa steps into second procurement mess in as many weeks
Two weeks after she withdrew her recommendation for an airport construction supervision contract due to the meddling of a politically connected family and their lobbyists, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava apparently wants to throw out another perfectly good bid process and start over — after what looks like more political interference.
County commissioners may have yet another field day at next week’s meeting (May 4) scrutinizing yet another one of la Alcaldesa’s iffy decisions.
Or non decisions.
This new procurement problem stars a cast of familiar characters who we thought we got rid of with the last administration. And las malas lenguas say the inspector general has already been alerted.
The contract in question is important for the future of the airport. It will allow the for the rehabilitation of the historic portion of the airport (Terminals E and F), for example. The construction projects that the professionals design could cost up to $5 billion in total over more than a decade. Even though the contract is only for the design services, the county decided to hire two teams — for $25 million each over five years — to avoid potential conflicts and allow for more flexibility. Smart.
Read related: Miami-Dade airport contract stalls as politicians meddle in procurement
A request for proposals went out at the end of 2019 — the third try because it’s been tossed out twice already since 2016 — and five teams submitted their proposals by the deadline on Jan. 31, 2020. Four of them made oral presentations last December. Each of them were scored on knowledge and experience by a selection committee of professional county staffers.
The first ranked team was Hill International with 463 total points. CBRE Heery Inc., who had the previous contract, was number two with 454 total points. Jacobs Engineering Group was a distant third with 439 total points. And WSP USA Inc. came in fourth with 430 points.
Almost immediately, the paid mouthpieces of these third and fourth ranked firms started to pressure the mayor and certain commissioners to throw the bids out and start again. They’ve complained about the process and raised issues that have already, again, been looked at and discarded as meritless.
“The County has determined that the procurement process for this project is in accordance with the [notice to professional consultants] and its standard practices. As such, the County is proceeding with the negotiations for this project.” says a March email from the county’s Internal Services Department to Jacobs Engineering lobbyist Eric Singer.
La Alcaldesa doesn’t cite any procedural problems in her memo recommending a rejection of all proposals. Instead, she lists a bunch of feelgood buzzwords that don’t mean a thing in this context. Words like workforce training, diversity (while 50% of the subcontractors are minority owned), and efficiency. Efficiency? With a five-year procurement process?
“The work of County procurement is critical to ensuring our public servants effectively use county resources to serve our diverse, growing population,” Levine Cava writes in her memo on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting. “I believe we need to look at County procurement processes and re-evaluate pending procurements with renewed commitment to our values, to ensure we are maximizing our purchasing power to its full potential and approaching procurement as a strategic opportunity for economic development.”
Ladra used to write like that in college, where every word counted.
The mayor also said that the proposals should be forward looking since we have to consider COVID19 and new guidelines like spacing and such. But the proposals were given in December. These people know they will have to deal with those issues, project by project.
Miami-Dade County memo awarding the Airport services contract January 2021 by Political Cortadito on Scribd
These are all things that could be addressed during the negotiations. That is, those things that haven’t already been addressed in the proposals. All the concerns surrounding conflicts and efficiency have been resolved by dividing the work into two teams. There are no allegations that the process was tainted. The arguments that Jacobs has made have been dismissed by the county’s professional staff.
County insiders are rumbling about how misguided la Alcaldesa is on this. And, make no mistake, her credibility is starting to suffer inside and outside of County Hall.
Read related: Miami-Dade’s problematic procurement helps county lobbyists
CBRE lobbyist Miguel de Grandy, in a letter urging the mayor and commissioners not to start over, sorta tears into every “justification” Levine Cava makes for her case in the memo by not so gently reminding her that the “need” she cites for these services has been apparent for years.
“The County did not issue the current procurement (the ‘solution’) until December of 2019. Now, in the second quarter of 2021, the County Administration seeks to delay the ‘solution’ even further by rejecting the proposed, and perfectly acceptable ‘solution’ in search of another one,” de Grandy writes in his letter.
“Rejection of an open, transparent procurement runs totally counter to this stated goal. To be clear, five years of delay to procure these services and two prior rejected procurements for the same services, can only be characterized as inefficient, if not outright dysfunctional.”
Miguel De Grandy letter Opposing Recommendation to Reject Proposals by Political Cortadito on Scribd
Former State Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, who represents Hill — and this time he is registered, according to the county website search — said that the representatives from Jacobs Engineering were misrepresenting facts about his clients subcontractors, all of whom passed muster with the county.
“Jacobs is relying on the old adage that if you repeat something enough it will eventually become fact,” Diaz de la Portilla wrote to the mayor in March. “What Jacobs’s states is that the county failed to address conflicts that do not exist.”
A group of small and minority owned businesses working with the two firms that were chosen also wrote an “open letter” to the mayor and commissioners, which is published as a full page ad in today’s Miami Today, basically begging her to reconsider.
“Our companies have spent the last two years dedicating time, energy, and money in pursuit of this contract, and have competed fairly and by the rules that the county laid out,” says the letter signed by 12 businesses. They had to forgo bidding on other county contracts and missed other work opportunities by pursuing this, they write.
“For most of us, this has been a five-year ordeal due to the two previous cancellations of this procurement that occurred while you were commissioner. Each of us has invested tens of thousands of dollars preparing our proposals and presentations,” wrote the business owners, which include Irene Fraga of Fraga Engineers, David Duckenfield of Balsera Communications and Lt. Col. Patrick Sharpton of Sharp 10 Group. So there are even veterans represented.
“Rarely have there been two teams with such a high level of local and diverse participation recommended for a project at the county,” their letter states. “In fact, the Aviation staff and Evaluation Committee took note of this as part of their analysis and subsequent rankings.”
Freddy Balsera, Balsera Communications also signed the letter, said 50% of the subcontractors hired by both chosen companies are black-owned, Hispanic-owned or woman-owned. All of them are local, he added.
“She’s basing it on values and diversity,” Balsera told Ladra, referring to the mayor’s memo of mumbo jumbo.
“We believe her and we support her, but I think it can be done without paralyzing the process and sacrificing a super important contract,” he said. “Meanwhile, you can’t move forward with billions of dollars in projects. It sets everything back.”
So, why is the mayor really trying to stop this?
Among the political meddlers, we have professional government grifter Ralph Garcia-Toledo, who seems to still be circling County Hall even after his padrino, former Mayor Carlos Gimenez, left. His firm is one of the subcontractors for the third ranked Jacobs team, but everyone knows it’s just to lobby and not really do anything of substance.
Ralph GT was reportedly spotted meeting with Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz at his district office — and he had former Miami-Dade Transportation and Public Works Director Alice Bravo, who isn’t supposed to lobby the county for two years after she left, in tow.
Knowing Garcia-Toledo it could have just been a date.
What we have here is a situation where the county has spent nearly five years to award this contract — this is the third bite at the apple — and a clean, literally “flawless” process could be tossed due to meddling.
At best it’s pressure being applied. At worst, there’s money exchanged.
Lobbyist Alex Heckler, who is registered to apply pressure for the fourth ranked company, sent out an email blast through his LSN Partners for a fundraiser Tuesday for the Democratic National Committee. One of the guests of honor: Mayor Levine Cava.
Didn’t la Alcaldesa run on a promise to reform county government? Does this look transparent to anybody? The idea is to keep politics out of contracts. That’s why there’s an evaluation committee and ranking process.
To go back out on the street again with a new request for proposals makes no sense when businesses at the airport are waiting for this contract, which was apparently done without any procedural issues, to be awarded and local minority firms are more than fairly represented.
A delay would only serve one purpose: To give someone that is politically connected another bite at the proverbial apple, above the needs of the airport or local workers and economy.
And here we thought it was a new day at County Hall.
More meddling in contracts makes Daniella Levine Cava cave to interests added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
