Council here has agreed to purchase a vehicle from a local dealer after no proposals were received by a tender deadline.
The town planned to replace a 2003 Chevrolet Venture van that was purchased in 2005 and used by multiple departments to transport staff and town officials to and from work-related functions and to move weather-sensitive cargo.
Council earmarked $30,000 for a replacement vehicle in the 2016 capital budget and a tender was posted. However there were no submissions received by the deadline of Nov. 22.
Leslie Motors of Harriston was contacted by staff the week of Nov. 28 and it was determined the most suitable option would be a Ford Escape, which meets most of the requirements of the tender – except it seats five instead of seven and comes in blue instead of dark blue.
“The reduced number of seats is not a concern to staff. The cost of the larger vehicle and its fuel consumption and given the amount of time more than five people will be in it will be more than offset by the more fuel-efficient option,” states a report from recreation services manager Matt Lubbers and chief building official Terry Kuipers.
Council approved the purchase of the vehicle from Leslie Motors for $27,390 plus tax and the licensing fee. Half will be funded through the tax budget and the other half from building department reserves.
Council also authorized spending upwards of $2,000 to wrap the vehicle with Town of Minto marketing material, rather than with a traditional Town of Minto logo sticker, in accordance with suggestions from business and economic manager Belinda Wick-Graham.
Councillor Mary Lou Colwell expressed concern there were no responses to the tender.
“It bothers me that we did not get any quotes and this has been happening on our vehicles quite a bit, ever since there was an incident,” Colwell said.
“I’m wondering if there’s something we should do because we do like to buy local and I’m not going to say we don’t, but we have to let it be known out there that that’s not necessarily a preference … they aren’t given preferential treatment because they’re local.
“We’re regulated that we don’t do that, so how can we let other dealerships know that they would be treated fairly if they were willing to quote on our vehicles?”
CAO Bill White acknowledged the problem may have stemmed from a tender a few years ago, when councillors rejected a slightly lower bid from an out-of-town dealer in order to accept a local bid.
“I would guess if I would call around there might still be some thought that, along the lines you mentioned, things go to the local bidder here. I don’t know how we can do it except to ask them again. The local bidder even missed this one,” White pointed out.
“One of things we put into our bids, and makes it a little tougher, we only have one dealer here, when you start doing maintenance and stuff you’ve got to build that in,” said Mayor George Bridge.
The mayor said if the town has to send two employees to deliver a vehicle for maintenance it could add $1,500 to $2,000 over the life of a maintenance contract.
“It (the vehicle) might be $500 cheaper, but it costs us more,” said Bridge. “We had to build that into our system and I think that’s caused a little bit of the problem.”
Councillor Judy Dirksen said, “I guess what I was concerned about was the local dealer missed it and we spent the bucks to advertise, because we’re supposed to, and we’re supposed to give everybody a fair chance … honestly it would be easier just to draw a circle around Minto and mail out the bid process to new (vehicle) dealers.
“It would be less expensive to put it all together, put it in an envelope, stick a dollar stamp on it and mail out to half a dozen of them and see what happens, than to do all the advertising. However, I also realize there’s an economic benefit to some companies for the advertising too.”
“We pretty much publicity advertise in the Newspaper for all our tenders,” noted Lubbers.
Dirksen replied, “Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s really important, because it helps keep our locals papers alive too, but it seems kind of useless to advertise when a) nobody saw this ad obviously and b) when you’re pretty limited on who you are advertising to.”
White noted the town was “long overdue” for a review of its procurement bylaw.
“I think we do a pretty good job but it doesn’t hurt to get up to date,” said White.
Council directed staff to prepare a report reviewing the procurement policies.
