BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Councilman Greg Tanaka’s seven years of frustration with the city’s lack of competitive bids boiled over at a committee meeting as he sparred with City Attorney Molly Stump and other top city officials.
Tanaka has made a point of voting “no” any time the city gets a low number of bids on its contracts, or if City Manager Ed Shikada doesn’t include the number of bids in his reports to council.
“I’m kind of famous for voting no on consent items,” Tanaka said Tuesday. “Usually every meeting I vote (no on) one to three items … I don’t think I am doing the work of the people if I don’t challenge some things.”
So when council’s Policy and Services Committee discussed an audit of the bidding process on Tuesday, Tanaka went back and forth with City Attorney Stump, Finance Director Lauren Lai and City Auditor Kate Murdock.
Tanaka said getting more bids from contractors will result in better prices for the city.
“In my mind it’s one of the biggest problems in the city, and it’s never addressed unfortunately,” Tanaka said.
Stump told Tanaka that he was getting off-topic because the discussion was supposed to be about Murdock’s audit of the bidding process.
Murdock said her audit focused more on the city’s compliance with the law and its own policies, and not the city’s performance or the number of bids on city contracts.
“You’re introducing new ideas,” Stump said to Tanaka.
Tanaka said he disagreed with Stump, reading the report that said the audit would determine whether the city’s bidding process was “efficient, effective and transparent to ensure value for money and fair competition.”
“If we don’t shop around, it’s really hard to get good prices,” Tanaka said.
“Council member, I’m not going to get into an argument with you,”Stump said.
“You’re challenging me, so I’m challenging you back,” Tanaka responded.
“I’ve given you some advice, and I’m going to stop now so the meeting can proceed,” Stump said.
Tanaka kept going, and Councilwoman Lydia Kou jumped in as chair of the meeting.
“The challenging you’re conducting, I don’t think they deserve that,” Kou said to Tanaka.
Lai said the city includes the number of bids on reports to council, pulling up a June 17 report about renovating a dog park at Mitchell Park.
The report said 47 contractors downloaded the bid package, and three contractors bid on the project. The city signed a contract with the lowest bidder to renovate the dog park for $338,459.
Tanaka said Lai was “cherrypicking,” and most reports haven’t included details about the bids.
Tanaka had an ally in Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims, who said she was also surprised that Murdock’s audit didn’t look at why the city often gets one or zero bids.
Murdock said the scope of the audit was decided by the previous auditor.
She said she is working on an audit plan for the next year that could include a deeper look at competitive bidding, if that’s what council wants.
Lai said the city recently switched to a more popular software, so more contractors will see the city’s requests for bids.
Tanaka called the lack of bids “gross negligence.”
“I’m glad you got that off your chest,” Kou said at the end of the discussion.
The problem with losing Kou & Tanaka at the same time is that they are the ONLY checks and balances on Palo Alto politics. Tanaka’s a bean counter and Kou is a “shortest line to the solution” person. City Councils shouldn’t all be unanimous affirmations of County electeds will, it’s good to have some give and take. Sadly without Kou here fighting against Prop 5 and Tanaka asking for two bids (exactly what your own insurance company would want), Palo Altans will be spending tens of thousands more per year.
It’s high time for the introduction “of new ideas” into the bidding process and the way the city handles contracts and RFPs. Going back decades to the days of Transportation Czar Jaime Rodriquez, he’d publish the RFPs just before the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with response dates of just a few days after the holidays.
That’s one of the reasons it look PA 8+ years to turn off the unnecessary traffic light at Paly when school was out which was a mere yards from the nearby light at the Town & Country Shopping Center entrance.
Trust me I paid attention after having been stuck at 2 red lights at midnight and then fighting for that change.
And guess who got the multi-million-dollar contract for city-wide light timing after he left his highly paid PA job with its lifetime benefits??? Why Mr. Rodriguez off course!
PA specializes in Holiday Deadline RFPs and Requests For Comments just as they did over this year’s July 4th weekend when they requested comments on the Housing Elemebt!
So sorry, Molly, new ideas to save us $$$$ are long overdue even though inattentive voters gave the city a blank check to keep overcharging us for utility so the money can be siphoned into the General Fund to be wasted on $3.5 Million retail consultants” instead of asking US for OUR opinion which we’d gladly give for free,
I 100% agree that voters are not paying attention to big issues. The termed out members have had zero accomplishment to show case for their 8 yrs in office We have one person who complained about salaries and not performance and complained about slow permit process. The other person is worried about too many permit. What kind of platform is that and they got elected twice without any real accomplishment and now they are termed out!! Neither have any other issue to work on, both of their platforms are resolved by the state law or by the court. We have a renter who is against too much housing, we have business people who aren’t worried about lack of earned sales tax in the city and the high cost of pension fund liabilities. I can go on and on but for a city with many “high achiever” residents, t seems that we elect those that make zero difference to the city.
@fed up: You yourself named salaries, staff performance, permitting processes, protecting neighborhoods,taxes, funding pensions, defending against unreasonable state mandates…. as concerns addressed by the CC. However, you claim … “it seems that we elect those that make zero difference to the city.” How so? Are the latter issues not important for consideration? Much more, much more has been addressed by CC over the past eight years than your short list. Gregory Behrends’ post is accurate; Kou and Tanaka have been assets to our city. It is a shame we lose them when we still need them.
The original video is worth a watch – I suggest scrolling forward to Tanaka and Stump’s exchange, then Lythcott-Haims’s comments.
Tanaka may come off wacky and long-time residents may be tired of him, but he has great points and Lythcott-Haims is great at phrasing them in a productive way. I’m hopeful for her making more progress as time goes on.
Everyone should take note of City Attorney Molly Stump’s animosity at getting questioned – what’s that all about? She exhibits this quite often in public meetings, particularly when Tanaka asks her, well, anything.
I’m confused about why the City Attorney and City Manager see themselves as counter to our elected officials, rather than working FOR City Council (their legal role). What’s that all about, and why is it tolerated here in Palo Alto?