Letter: 'Edelson’s Loophole Filled Policy Fails to Shop Best Value'

Editor,

Edelson doing a good job following loophole filled policy he authored which allowed him to hand out hundreds of thousands of $ in one-bid awards since elected.

Edelson’s disingenuous diatribe re bidding, posted on the town website, is an 11th hour election ploy to deceive voters as is his recent placement of the current dump on the state portal with bids due August 9 !  That's after the horse escaped the barn, folks and those one-bid awards handed out!

After spending about $1 Million without benefit of  at least one other bid he has the temerity to state:

“Bidding will allow choice of best value although in some cases this might not be the lowest cost.”

How so – is he clairvoyant -- since he for the past 20 months he has failed to shop ‘best value’ – and his one bid awards lacking benefit of another bid don’t give us a clue of value. I remind you of his inappropriate invitation to a recipient of hundreds of thousands of those one-bid awards to address a BOS meeting to defend this one bid policy in spring 2012!

Ask Selectman Chad Landmon, who has been the object of nasty, derisive remarks from Edelson and his henchmen for even suggesting the town obtain at least a 2nd bid on costly equipment since Edelson took office, while Edelson has the audicity to state that “one area that receives attention is our purchase of vehicles, many of which are expensive.”

“Attention?” – how so, when a substantial number of these “expensive” awards went to one bidder since he took office. One Bid awards from Dec 15, 2011 to June 21, 2012 were close to $400,000. Among bids awarded 5/17/12 and 6/21/12 for dump trucks, were awarded after he stated in a newspaper article of 4/6/12 that he was aware the state portal. Yet, a document I received from the Town indicates those bids only published in Voices and the Republican American.

In March 2012, I identified to Edelson additional CT dealerships who could have bid on trucks and Jon Norris and I informed him he wasn't getting bids because of the limited circulation of local papers. He indicated it was too burdensome to pick up the phone and fax RFQ’s or call vendors—as other towns do.

With millions of your tax dollars in reserve, he’s going to spend it simply because it’s there – i.e., why waste time to seek 2nd (or 3rd bid as is required by other towns)?

In April 2012, following a puff piece in a newspaper that he planned to meet with a purchasing consultant, (whom he refused to name or indicate topics they discussed to this taxpayer under FOI request) Edelson gave lip service he would list future bids on the State DAS Portal as other towns do. Most towns place bids on the portal since they get multiple responses – and vendors frequent the portal for bids and most often come in lower than the state bid list. The CFO of a neighboring town informed me they get such excellent response to their bids, they no longer advertise in newspapers!

Edelson ‘s sham of a loophole filled policy which leaves number of bids required discretionary, can’t stand up to the policies of other towns who recognize that a strong bid process saves taxpayer dollars and most towns require a minimum of 3 bids for thresholds of $3,000 - compared to our $20,000 threshold--while we fail to even obtain bids in that high amount and over!  

Edelson had 20 months to cleans up Southbury’s ill conceived Purchasing Policy armed with other town policies Jon Norris and I provided him.

When he states at the end of his latest epistle: “…Of course we can always improve and we remain open to creative ideas to make sure we continue to get the best value…” and states: “We are committed to…ensuring that taxpayers money is spent prudently and productively,” -- both statements are patently false when he went through the past 20 months without a clue of best value, or interest in spending your tax dollars prudently and productively, lacking more than one bid in hand.

He has no intention to …'improve' the policy, or entertain 'creative ideas' -- the proof?  ... when asked at an RTC meeting he attended in 2012 if he intended to fix our policy, he replied emphatically, “NO.”

At Thursday’s Board Meeting, Edelson and his cohorts handed a one bid $232,000 award to one of three (approved on call) engineering firms without benefit of asking the other 2 firms also prequalified, for a quote.

Hubert was clear that they did not choose the on call engineers based on price. We have no idea if the other engineers could do the current work for cheaper (and we'll never know because this project was never bid out).

And, there was no work done to explain why they chose Milone & Macbroom over the other two approved on call engineers, in spite of the Board of Selectman being specifically told in December that they would evaluate each project and pick the best engineer. They certainly did no written evaluation for this project.

Only Selectman Chad Landmon voted no!

Signed,

Carol Renza, co-chair, Concerned Taxpayers of Southbury.