Discussions about Iola’s purchasing policy Tuesday led to an argument between City Council members Scott Stewart and Ken Rowe about the need to get multiple bids for purchases — some routine — by the city.
The issue stemmed from a proposal by City Administrator Carl Slaugh asking councilmen to consider certain vendors as “sole source” providers — companies that provide equipment or chemicals for the city’s two Wartsila generators or the water plant — or allow other exceptions, such as for J-D’s Tire and The Shirt Shop.
Slaugh’s proposal was voted down 5-2, with only Stewart and Don Becker in favor, with Rowe, Kendall Callahan, Jim Kilby, Beverly Franklin and Steve French opposed. Joel Wicoff, whose daughter is in Washington, D.C., this week for the National Spelling Bee, was absent.
While Rowe was amenable to Slaugh’s request to consider vendors for the Wartsila generators sole source providers — no other company manufactures compatible equipment, he noted — the other exceptions didn’t hold as much water.
“We’ve got statements here that says ‘so and so provides goods at a valuable price,’” Rowe said. “How do we know that? My understanding is we don’t want to take bids because they’re good ole’ boys.”
Approving Slaugh’s list of exceptions and sole source providers would essentially gut the purchasing policy, Rowe said, which hasn’t officially been used yet. (It becomes effective Friday).
“There are other companies that provide chemicals for the water plant,” Rowe said. “There are other companies that provide tires. The reason we put the purchasing policy in place was so that we could have guidelines.”
Rowe’s comments struck a nerve with Councilman Stewart, who formerly worked in the city warehouse and dealt with equipment and material purchases.
“Anything the city has bought for the last 100 years, of any substance, has been sent out for bid,” Stewart said. “Trust me, I spent seven years doing exactly that. I don’t understand what it is that’s caused some people to think we have been under-dealing and operating the City of Iola like it’s a lemonade stand.”
When reminded by Councilman Callahan the council approved the purchasing policy, Stewart responded that he voted against the policy, calling it “micro-managing to the ‘nth’ degree.”
Operating with the existing policy will eat up any proposed savings by added time for employees seeking bids, Stewart contended.
“I believe it’s very important that we have a purchasing plan in place,” Callahan said, one that exercises common sense.
If what Slaugh and others in the city claim is true, existing vendors would remain in place, provided they go through the bid process, Callahan said.
“If we approve this and make these guys sole providers, then we have taken this option out,” and taken a valuable control away from the city, Callahan said.
Callahan pointed to the council’s vote to purchase a new patrol vehicle for the Iola Police Department as an example of exercising common sense.
The council accepted a bid from Twin Motors Ford to purchase a 2013 Ford utility vehicle for $26,600, even though it was $1,215 more expensive than a bid from Shawnee Mission Ford. The purchasing policy, Callahan noted, allows for such exceptions to favor local companies.
