CC Min 2003-01-13 Reg - Laserfiche WebLink

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number of citizens in that community is a responsibility of the City Council to ensure that the people have the biggest bang for the buck. He asked that the public notices be run in the paper with the widest distribution in the City and that at a $.03 premium per column inch the City is getting a bargain. Council Member Jordan asked about the City Charter not being, in her opinion, very clear on the best way to deliver public notices based on the concept of circulation and circulation for the people of Redwood City rather than the convenience for the City and how to address that. She asked if there is a way to define lowest responsible bidder or some other provision of the Charter that would provide value to the City as opposed to the lowest price. City Attorney Yamamoto stated that in order to make the Charter more clear, proposed amendments to the Charter would need to be placed before the voters of the City. He stated that the notion of lowest responsible bidder is consistent with the California State Public Contracts Code and with the Public Works contracts whereby the requirement is to go out to bid and award to the lowest responsible bidder. He stated that the lowest responsible bid is not necessarily the cheapest depending upon the kind of work being bid. With regard to the price, it is only one aspect of being the lowest responsible bidder. The Charter specifically provides that the award of the contract must go to the lowest responsible bidder and inasmuch as the Charter does not delineate a specific procedure for that process, attorneys create an analogy. The Public Contracts Code first looks to the monetary distinction between bids. In the first instance, the question would be, are you able to make a distinction between bids, and if so, the first hurdle has been reached. The question of looking at who the responsible bidder is, it is not simply looking at who is the most responsible because the Council has gone out for bids seeking bidders who are responsible. If the bids, as submitted, can demonstrate that the bid is intended to provide the work requested under the bid instructions, then it is responsive. So the process is not to look at the most responsible, but it is a matter of finding that they are the lowest monetary responsible bidder. Council Member Jordan asked whether it is possible to incorporate a doorstep circulation formula, possibly using price as the numerator and number of residents or circulation as the denominator to determine the lowest responsible bidder. City Attorney Yamamoto stated he was not prepared to respond to that inquiry with any degree of expertise because he had not looked at the Charter under those specific circumstances. He stated he would perform the examination, but that the difficult question that cannot be answered at that time is whether it is possible to implement it under the existing language in the Charter. REGULAR CITY COUNCIL M MINUTES JANUARY 13, 2003 PAGE 5 MINUTES Book No. 59 Page No. 357