The City of Lloydminster is looking to potentially contract a new company for building and plumbing permitting.
Administration presented their request for proposal (RFP), which had three companies return proposals for the contract. The three companies that were scored include, Park Enterprises Ltd., The Inspections Group Inc. and the company that currently does the permitting work, Superior Safety Codes.
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Finding a company to do the local permitting has been a difficult venture for administration.
“Our charter has specifics in there on what codes we must follow for these services, but they still fall silent on how we administer those services,” said Terry Burton, the city’s director of planning and engineering.
He says this is the first time the city has had more than one vendor to choose from.
“This service has been a complex one to tender, appropriately,” said Burton. “This is the first year we had more than one vendor that actually met the requirements.”
Due to the complexity of Lloydminster being a border city, inspectors have to be certified in both Alberta and Saskatchewan.
The RFP was issued on Aug. 28 and closed on Sept. 25. There were three proposals received and all three were interviewed to confirm mandatory submission requirements and the services listed within the RFP could be achieved.
Each proposal was reviewed for completeness and based on corporate qualifications and experience, key staff qualifications and experience, methodology/work plan and financial summary.
From the scoring of the submissions, administration recommended Lethbridge-based Park Enterprises Ltd. to win the award. They were the overwhelming winner based on their score with a proposed revenue split of 60 per cent of the permit fee retained by Park Enterprises and 40 per cent retained by the city.
The proposal drew concern from council. Coun. David Lopez said he reached out to builders and developers in this industry when he first came across this agenda item.
“The key thing I got from the developers and builders was they were shocked about this,” he said. “The one developer I did speak with was sitting there saying that the efficiencies we have now, we can get a building permit done in two days. He goes to other communities and that permit can take up to six months and was questioning why we were looking at changing something that works so well.”
Another council concern was awarding the contract to a company that doesn’t operate in Lloyd.
“I do fear that having an office here and having a within-48-hour turnaround, I can’t imagine someone that doesn’t have an office in this community being able to give us that kind of service,” said Lopez. “I don’t know how someone that’s hours away can give us the same service as someone who has an office here.”
Burton clarified the company did commit to short timelines, including 10 days to have a plan design review done and two days for a plumbing permit.
“They’re committing to come. When an application for an inspection is done, they’re here within 48 hours to do that side of things,” he said.
Lopez worries they’re jumping the gun on awarding this contract.
“I know I’ve gotten text messages and emails this morning from builders and developers that are shocked that we’re even looking at a different company knowing how efficient we’ve had it for building permits in this community and inspections to go to an unknown,” he said. “If we lose Superior because they’ve lost the contract and Parks can’t commit, what do we have then?”
Burton explained Parks has inspectors throughout the province.
“So, not just necessarily coming from the home base, they come from a little closer, too.”
Lopez says the worry could just be the fear of the unknown, but his concern still lies with lack of communication with the customer that is being impacted by this change.
“I feel like we missed a step not going and talking to the businesses that are going to be impacted by this to see if they’re looking for something, or if they are looking for something, what more were they wanting,” he said.
Burton says once a decision is made, they would be in contact to inform people of the services of the new business.
“It’s kind of hard to go through those things when we’re in that potential transition,” he said. “With the possibility of this RFP going out, in all reality, you aren’t even too sure what you’re going to get for a result. Once a decision’s made, whichever direction it’s made to transition to a new service, that’s the biggest challenge we have is to make sure we get the building community on board as to what these new services are and what this new company can provide.”
Coun. Jason Whiting says he wanted some clarity on where the previous vendor fell short.
“I would like to know, has the previous vendor failed on some of these timelines, is that a reason for looking elsewhere,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re trying to fix something that isn’t broken.”
Coun. Jim Taylor echoed the other councillors as people reached out to him with questions and concerns revolving around this item.
While Coun. Michele Charles Gustafson wanted to get a more detailed breakdown of how the companies are scored.
“I think it would be helpful for council to see how those criteria are weighted in the decision,” she said. “If it’s not just financial and there are some other things we don’t know about or criteria you expect or you know your customer needs, we would need to know that in order to justify the score and therefore approving the contract.”
Coun. Justin Vance expressed interest in seeing experience in the community added as a weighted item to the score.
“You look at our main contractor for stormwater and sewer replacement, the experience they have in our community is substantial, they know what to expect,” said Vance.
“I’m just worried about customer service. It’s definitely an unknown going into a new contractor, especially like Coun. Lopez says, (one that) lives six hours away as their main hub.”
Burton explained Park outlined the company will work with the municipality to understand their nuances.
The scoring totals saw Park Enterprises as the top candidate with a total score of 75.75, Inspections Group had a score of 67.83 and Superior Safety Codes had a score of 67.23.
“This is a very tough one when we don’t know some of the criteria that was used to get to these total scores and all we see is a revenue percentage,” said Whiting.
“What I also see is, the next one up, which is an 80/20 split on revenue, still outscored our current vendor, which tells me if you take the money right out of it, there’s something missing that our current vendor either didn’t do or doesn’t currently offer and that’s the information I would need to know.”
Previous RFPs didn’t see many proposals, but Burton says after opening it up to company’s that don’t have a Lloydminster office, more proposals came forward.
Mayor Gerald Aalbers asked if there was a list of issues with the current vendor.
“There’s always going to be issues, no matter what we have for contracted services,” said Burton. “I’m not saying it’s totally clean, but we’re able to work through those issues we had.”
Aalbers says he heard much of the same concern from the community regarding this contract.
“I can tell you, in a short time this morning, I think I had four or five texts and four emails from industry players saying the wheels aren’t broken, you don’t need to replace the tire,” he said. “We know what we have today, and as you’ve outlined, there’s potential it could be better and you believe it will be better and that’s based on the information you folks have got.”
Council requested additional information from administration and that the item be brought back to a future council meeting.
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