The staff are collecting the council votes as we speak. The presentation is over. Wow–8:20 and we’re almost through with the first agenda item!
Which is pretty typical for these presentations, so I can’t blame the council.

Would you readers prefer it if I DID go into detail on these presentations, the qualifications of each firm and the council questions?
I must give the audience credit–while some of them are texting, several are playing close attention, so they presumably do care (of course they could be daydreaming or making out shopping lists, but they certainly look attentive).

The spokesman says that he wishes Tina had stuck around because he’s a fellow classmate of hers from Wewahitchka.

Well, not quite. Most of the council’s here, the rest are filtering in. Slowly.

Sorry there’s not much to post but we’re halfway through the six firms. Hang tight!

The council is now discussing whether they agree with the one small/one large standard of council. Dewey Destin says he can’t see a need for three people.
Kisela: It’s economics. Large firms have additional overhead. Dewey: Then we just need one small firm. Trammell: We need something done, it’s x-amount of dollars–does the size matter? Kisela: Overhead is higher, costs are much higher than smaller firms, but smaller firms don’t have the capability. “We like the capability to pick and choose … we respectfully request you have one large and one smaller firm.”
Dewey: We only have one small firm to pick from, so this is pointless.
Sam: No, there’s a second.

With Sam Seevers: The original five and Baskerville are the top six, and if you dismiss location, they’re scored identically. SO he’s OK with listening to all.
Jim Wood: We have criteria, now we’re talking about changing it–”Are we talking about changing it for the future … so we do it that way all the time? We’re just talking about changing it tonight” and that doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Bagby: I’m not saying either. I’m saying the bid committee made a mistake, and we’re trying to fix it. Adding B-D to the presentations will do that.
Now the vote on whether to include B-D or not. No, first Sandy Trammell says she’ll abstain because of a relationship with one of the firms.
Kelly Windes: “I can’t vote on much it seems any more” but since his company’s doing business with one of the firms, does he have to abstain? Miller: No.
Seevers; Still wants the B-D package. Shaeffer presents it (I think I’m spelling his name wrong—sorry!).
Unanimous to hear the six, with Trammell abstaining.
Craig: Asks Miller if they can waive the location rule in the future. Miller: That’s a policy decision.
And now the presentations begin.

Jim Bagby objects to the scoring matrix and how it ranks ease of access to Destin: It’s easier at some times of the year to get here from Panama City than FWB, he says. And he’d strongly recommend the city and the staff use the same ranking system (they don’t). “If they took location out, how much would that change the ranking?”
Tom: If you disregard location rankings, the six firms that would score highest are here tonight, “the five plus the one. And they would all have scored 70 by disregarding the location ranking.”
Bagby: Let’s just consider the six here tonight, then.
Dewey: That beats doing nothing, but he worries it’s not legally defensible.
Sam Seevers: Can we get the copies of the B-D bid package from Baskerville Donovan?
Steve Schmidt, public services director: No, we only have one.
Seevers: Can we get duplicates made while we hear the others?
Shaeffer: We brought six or seven packages to the bid committee–we can provide you with some scaled-down packages.
Dewey: Asks city attorney if the council can add Baskerville without getting into trouble? Miller: Hard to say–he thinks abandoning the location standard at the last minute could be a bigger problem.
“This system’s not perfect, you have some discretion to way the information you hear and act accordingly.”
Dewey: If we let everyone apply, would that not be more defensible?
Miller: If you think the process has produced a faulty result, I’d recommend beginning the process again.
Dewey: Go back to the bid committee or start over ourselves?
Miller: “You’re procedures call for you to go through the process you’ve been through–I’d advise you to be consistent with that.”
Seevers: The issue is the location portion, but it doesn’t change the rankings if we remove that: We still have the top six.

Dewey: It’ll be more work for us, but he recommends that we hear Baskerville and the other firms tonight and invite the other firms to come to the next meeting (to avoid any accusations of favoritism). Motion dies without a second.
Bagby: I would have seconded it without the other firms being invited. Asks what the normal cut-off was for who’s invited to bid (in terms of the point-scoring system the city uses).
More discussion of the standards follows.

Destin has had continuing contracts with Hatch Mott McDonald, Bowyer-Singleton and Tetra Tech for a number of years. According to the staff report, the city has decided to cut HMM and Bowyer-Singleton loose and hire two additional consultants. Five firms, two small and local and three large, have qualified; the city’s bid committee recommends hiring one of each (local is good for a quick response, City Manager Greg Kisela is telling council). So now the fabulous five—Campbell Engineering, Jenkins Engineering, Moore Bass Consulting, PBS&J, Preble-Rish—will make their presentations before the city votes.
There may be little posted here during this process. Usually it’s too dry even for liveblogging, a discussion of past accomplishments and former clients.
Craig: Baskerville-Donovan has filed an appeal, based on the question of whether they’re based in Destin or not.
Kisela: The committee looked at whether that would make a difference–they found it didn’t affect the top five (if I’m following this). Dewey suggests they let him speak.
Mark Shaeffer of Baskerville Donovan comes forward. “We submitted as a team with seven other firms–four of those are Destin based.” He goes further into their Destin cred.