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Passionate discussion erupted when BoMA considered approving a five-year contract with St. John Engineering, LLC for engineering and consulting for the city Tullahoma at Monday night’s meeting.

Alderman Daniel Berry made a motion for the approval of the item, and Mayor Pro Tem Jerry Mathis seconded the motion, but before the rest of the board could vote, Alderman Kurt Glick spoke up.

“I have questions for the staff of where this was advertised,” he said.

“It was advertised in the Tullahoma News, and it was advertised on our website,” replied Director of Public Works Robert Taylor. He also stated that they advertised the job on the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program state website.

“I know last time, five years ago, there were several people that responded and this year we only had one,” said Glick, “Did we reach out to any of the firms that responded last time?”

“We did not,” said Taylor. “We put it out to our normal procurement process … a lot of these engineering firms, they’ll get on the state’s website and seek out the projects that they’re interested in.”

Glick suggested there may be more interested in responding to the call.          

“I know at least one of the other firms that applied last time was interested in doing this,” said Glick, “but they weren’t aware of it because of how it was advertised. So what I’d suggest is that we maybe go through the process again to get other people who may be interested in putting in a proposal on this because it is a pretty large contract. I know we spent just over $200,000 with Scott St. John last year, and this is a five year term, so if the spending level stayed at that, it could be worth a million dollars. And for only one respondent and that size of contract, I think that we should maybe be a little more proactive in our announcements.”

“If I may respond,” Taylor asked the mayor who gave his consent for him to speak. “It’s difficult to do it on this level of what we do. If you look at Mr. St. John’s engineering per hour cost, if you look at any other firm outside of this area, you’re going to double the cost. If you seek someone else and we go and evaluate them and they get it, you’ve gotta go back probably five projects that we have in the works. It’s kind of difficult, that’s the reason why a lot of people don’t swap firms, it can go back and cost us more money in the long run. I’m certainly up for whatever the board tells me to do, but a lot of times they don’t seek [these projects] out.”     

Glick made an amendment to “not approve this tonight, but seek additional proposals and contact people from before … if no one applies, we’ll revisit this a month from now.”

There was a pause and Mayor Ray Knowis asked for a second, which Alderman Bobbie Wilson made.

Berry interjected, asking Glick “As a clarification, one of the firms reached out to you and said that they wanted to apply, but they did not know about it?”

“I reached out to them,” Glick answered.

“I see maybe putting it out there again where we did before, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to reach out,” Berry responded. He asked what would happen to whatever group didn’t get reached out to, and explained that it could cause serious misunderstandings or problems with future projects. “I think that’s a slippery slope,” he said.

Glick disagreed, pointing to his years of experience with contracts and proposals.

“That’s just standard practice,” Glick said, “I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and that’s what we did when we wanted to get a lot of proposals in.” He explained that he would seek engineering firms out to “ask them to consider putting in a proposal for the project because the best thing is for us to have more than one to choose from.”

“Just because we did it in the past doesn’t mean that it was the right thing to do,” Berry responded, and Glick spoke as he continued, saying “it is the right thing to do …”

Berry questioned the reasoning, and suggested that if what Glick was saying is true, they should reach out to every engineering firm in the state before they approve a proposal.

“There’s a state website for this,” Berry added.

Mann asked how long the approval would be extended. Glick said a month, and Mann asked who would be reaching out to firms. Glick said the Public Works staff could do that.

“To put this back out, it’s going to take longer than a month,” said Taylor, “We have current projects. It could slow us down.”

Glick listened, but did not back down. Taylor just said he couldn’t say how long it would take to get quotes, but it would be longer than a month.

Knowis put the Glick amendment to a vote, and it failed at 3-3. Knowis, Berry and Mathis voted nay, and Glick, Mann and Wilson voted yay. Alderman Jenna Amacher was absent.

Berry made the motion to approve the contract, Mathis seconded and the approval passed 5-1 with Glick the only one in opposition.