Long Beach to get third-party vetting of bids for $42M contract

Foregoing a full-blown audit of the city’s procurement process for a recycling collections contract, Long Beach’s City Council chose to instead call upon a third party to review the competition for a deal that could be worth some $42 million over 10 years.

Councilman Rex Richardson called for a 30- to 60-day review of the procurement process in order to determine whether or not anything went wrong while City Hall staffers and a consulting firm worked to figure out which of four competing vendors would be the best option for the contract.

Despite some initial disagreement by council members who said they were confident a fair process has already been achieved, the council voted unanimously Tuesday to ask an outside party to take a look at what has already transpired. It will be up to City Attoey Charles Parkin’s office to select a firm to conduct the review.

Previously, Long Beach staffers recommended Waste Management of Long Beach, the city’s longtime recycling collections contractor, for the job. The firm was selected over a trio of other competitors.

One company, Republic Services, filed a formal protest against the city’s process. Another, EDCO Waste and Recycling Services, also brought up conces.

Athens Services is the fourth company that entered the competition.

The council discussed the prospect of an audit during its March 8 meeting, but officials decided then to wait until Tuesday to figure out what to do.

On March 15, City Auditor Laura Doud published a memo on her willingness to conduct on audit, which may have required six months of work. Doud wrote in that missive that a wide gap in bidders’ price quotes, and one bidder’s having to revise its proposal four times suggested the possibility that City Hall’s initial request for proposals could have better communicated what officials wanted out of a vendor.

Doud also raised the prospect that staffers may have placed too high of a value on the possible benefits of sticking with their current vendor.

City Manager Patrick West said during Tuesday’s meeting that he needed to respect Doud’s conces. He went as far as recommending the council re-do the bidding process, but the council chose not to go that far.

Richardson said the third-party review will give council members the information they need to decide whether to hire Waste Management or to reset the procurement process.

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More to come.