keoadmin
01-18-2006, 06:00 PM
The logic of Councillor George Stoparczyk is usually pretty sound, but I have to disagree with him completely on what constitutes fairness and ethics in the competitive bid process for the multiplex. Stoparczyk (today's Whig) suggests the city, having selected Fortune Crescent as the best site for the multiplex, should also give the arena project to the company that picked the site. Stoparczyk says it may not be ethical to ask other firms to submit proposals for the Fortune Crescent land when one company (unidentified, but who wants to lay odds on the Ottawa Senators, the apparent darling of the council set?) went to the trouble of building its proposal around this particular property.
On what planet would you select a proponent based on a piece of land? Don't fairness and common sense suggest that a company hired to build a $20 million arena ought to have some experience building and operating similar facilities, a history delivering large arena construction projects on time and on budget - and maybe a solid financing package? Shouldn't the multiplex committee choose a proposal based on these little items rather than on what piece of land was proposed? That's not to suggest the Senators - or whichever company proposed Fortune Crescent - don't have these qualifications, but asking all the would-be arena builders to submit new proposals for the same piece of land, as the city solicitor suggests, appears the only fair and logical - and ethical - way to select the most qualified company for the job.
Back to what I said the other day: If the multiplex committee had done a modicum of homework; if it had selected the site first - as, believe it or not, many other municipalities have been able to do - then we wouldn't be in the awkward position of having to issue yet another proposal call in order to ensure fairness in this process. This committee knew this, or it ought to have known, at the outset the mess it would get in by not making one tiny decision about where to put the arena before it issued an RFP.
And what's with this pool discussion? For Pete's sake council, before you issue another request for proposals, make a decision on the pool one way or the other. Don't leave it up to private companies to guess whether or not this should be included as part of the bid package. A pool is either in or out. Pick one. Or could the issue here be, as the Whig suggested some time ago, that the Senators don't build pools?
On what planet would you select a proponent based on a piece of land? Don't fairness and common sense suggest that a company hired to build a $20 million arena ought to have some experience building and operating similar facilities, a history delivering large arena construction projects on time and on budget - and maybe a solid financing package? Shouldn't the multiplex committee choose a proposal based on these little items rather than on what piece of land was proposed? That's not to suggest the Senators - or whichever company proposed Fortune Crescent - don't have these qualifications, but asking all the would-be arena builders to submit new proposals for the same piece of land, as the city solicitor suggests, appears the only fair and logical - and ethical - way to select the most qualified company for the job.
Back to what I said the other day: If the multiplex committee had done a modicum of homework; if it had selected the site first - as, believe it or not, many other municipalities have been able to do - then we wouldn't be in the awkward position of having to issue yet another proposal call in order to ensure fairness in this process. This committee knew this, or it ought to have known, at the outset the mess it would get in by not making one tiny decision about where to put the arena before it issued an RFP.
And what's with this pool discussion? For Pete's sake council, before you issue another request for proposals, make a decision on the pool one way or the other. Don't leave it up to private companies to guess whether or not this should be included as part of the bid package. A pool is either in or out. Pick one. Or could the issue here be, as the Whig suggested some time ago, that the Senators don't build pools?