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6.D. - Page 2 of 70 ANALYSIS The City's Purchasing Ordinance requires that equipment and supplies costing more than sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) are purchased on the open market on the basis of competitive bidding. A contract in this amount is awarded by the City Council to the lowest responsible bidder following public notice published in a newspaper of general circulation for the receipt of proposals and which notice contains a general description of the articles to be purchased, and other information pertaining to the process. The public policy behind this requirement is to maximize pricing benefits and fairness in the process for competitors in the marketplace. The Municipal Code also allows an alternative selection process on the basis that it will allow the city to obtain "maximum quality, services, or performance at minimum cost." Pursuant to Municipal Code Section 2.80, an allowed alternative process is procurement through a cooperative purchasing program (sometimes know colloquially as "piggybacking") as follows: • Purchases from vendors whose names are on current established lists and have been awarded the same type of purchase contract by a state agency, county, city or other public agency after competitive bidding processes substantially equivalent to that prescribed by the City Charter or the Purchasing Ordinance; and • Such purchases conform to the specifications thereof of the City; and • The estimated price of any such purchase is equal to or lower than that estimated for such purchase if made directly by the City pursuant to the standard competitive bidding requirements of the Purchasing Ordinance. This process allows the City to piggyback on the pricing that has been achieved through another public agency's bidding process. Further, alternative procedures may be acceptable even when there is no specific provision for alternatives to competitive bidding when competitive proposals would be unavailing or would not produce an advantage, and thwart the underlying purpose of having a competitive bid procedure. (See Graydon v. Pasadena Redevelopment Agency (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 631.) The most important consideration among these criteria in Section 2.80 is whether the cooperative purchasing program has followed a competitive bidding process substantially equivalent to the City's process and whether the City is getting the benefit of the bargain. Here, this test is met because the cooperative purchasing program follows a process substantially similar to the City's. The Police Department is a member of the National Purchasing Partners Government Division (NPPGOV). NPPGOV is a cooperative purchasing organization that offers publicly solicited contracts to public entities nationwide. According to its website (nppgov.com/understanding-cooperative-purchasing-publicly- awarded-contracts), NPPGOV follows these steps to award a contract: Step 1: NPPGOV identifies a contract need which is shared with a Lead Public Agency (LPA), which is an independent government agency such as city that agrees to serve as the contracting agency. Here, NPPGOV identified a need for various types of equipment including CEWs. The agency that acted as lead was the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) which is a public entity formed in 2013 by an Intergovernmental Agreement pursuant to Oregon law consisting of Oregon fire protection districts. The PPA was formed to provide procurement opportunities to its members as well as members participating in NPPGOV. (See https://ppa-or.gov/about-us/) City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcitV.org 394