In the question of leadership, who decides a need is a need? And how it gets dealt with? According to the Purchasing Policy, an Administrative Regulation for Town of Paris reinstituted 4-26-06, anything over $3200 must be approved by the municipal officers - the selectboard.
Is this what our selectboard believes it did on January 24th when it authorized the emergency, lickety-split purchase of a new plow at the no-bid purchase price of $8950?
Town Mgr. Tarr presented the emergency request under "other" on his portion of the agenda, [transcript of that portion of the meeting] complete with "...and we need to do it ASAP, like tomorrow;" price tag of $8950; and the photo of a new plow, using it as a visual example to discuss metal fatigue and ramifications of such to make it crystal clear that welding was absolutely not going to work any more on this useless old plow; and a final "I assume you want to be able to plow the roads and so forth. We cannot do it with the piece of equipment we have. If you're satisfied with that I'll go ahead and purchase it tomorrow."
What selectboard member is not aware of snow and roads and the need for working plows in the winter in Maine? Of course red flags will be slow to come up - what kind of careless elected official is not going to be concerned about this sort of "emergency" ?
A question came up about process: "...emergency situation. Are we subject to opt out not to bid or something? Any language in the process?"
No one in the entire room, board, management, or audience, had a copy of the policy. Chairman Glover tried to remember some of it , but Mgr. Tarr was quick to point out that Glover wasn't quite right. The manager paraphrased the rule that department heads - including the manager - can approve up to $3200, and that the board must approve anything over.
Mgr. Tarr recommended that the board "set aside whatever exists," evidently referring to any existing purchasing policy that no one remembered anyway.
Someone questioned why this particular model was the only one considered. Answer = the company had made the original plow, and this model would likely fit the truck now in use. Mgr. Tarr also felt that the new plow would arrive in very short order, and all would be well. (This was an emergency, after all - speed was of the essence.)
Selectman Kurtz smoothed over any concern about not getting bids since the purchase was only in the 10K range [see transcript]; that time spent in shopping around would not balance the immediacy of the emergency.
Only in the $10,000 range? Is this the same speaker who, since he took office last March, has challenged what seems like every single penny that comes out of the town coffers?
But, it was, after all, an emergency.... The vote followed to authorize the purchase of the new plow. Mgr. Tarr politely thanked the board. Having moved beyond emergency issues, the meeting continued.
Now, if there hadn't already been issues of purchasing items outside of approved procedure, causing great hoopla at that front table (think golf cart...think police cruiser....) perhaps no one in the audience of that meeting on the 24th would even have raised an eyebrow. And if things had gone according to plan, the new plow would probably have become a non-issue.
The snows did come. And the roads did get plowed. Our highway crew is staffed with good workers.
However, the new plow did not come until 2 weeks later, Feb. 8, even though the bill of sale states it was ordered Jan.25. Alas.
So - what were the roads plowed with in the interim? Will we discover that the old, unusable, unweldable plow became magically fixed by someone? or that there was a spare plow? How did the plowing happen during those 2 weeks if things were all that dire in the emergency situation on January 24th?
Reminder: the reason for a no bid purchase was because the process had to be done quickly. ASAP, even.
Even if the bidding process would have saved only a few dollars - or none at all - who gets to claim "emergency" to circumvent the process? Who was it that named this Jan. 24th need an "emergency"?
If the plow could be fixed, even for the short term, how come the request wasn't "we need a plow ASAP, we can probably piece it together temporarily while we go out and get bids."
Bids - the correct process for amounts over $3200, according to the current purchasing policy, right there in the sentence next to the other sentence Mgr. Tarr had pretty much memorized in his head.... [check policy posted]
Questions :
*Who led who, here?
*How come the board wasn't informed well before the moment of that meeting that there was a concern.... Why wasn't this question asked a week - or more - before, and bids brought along with the request on Jan. 24th?
* Or did someone know there was a need and waited until there was an optimum moment to speak?
*Why isn't there a process to keep the board informed about such needs? If a piece is about to break, it should be noted. If a piece cannot be repaired one more time, it should be noted. Were these things noted? Was Mgr. Tarr aware of such? Did he look?
A copy of the vehicle inventory and status report given to the board back in September at the request of Selectman West does not mention the state of the plows, for instance. Where would that be listed?
*Is it wise to always rely on what someone else reports? Particularly if purchasing processes have sometimes been less than stellar in the not too distant past? Who on that board goes in to look at the equipment on a regular basis? Who even knew enough about the old plow to ask meaningful questions?
*How will those covering for less than efficient management spin this? again....
Who is running this town, anyway?
