Brookhaven Commission Nearly Finished with RFPs

The 10 comitttees of the Governor's Commission on Brookhaven are nearly finished with their requests for proposals, which will be a way to have vendors submit bids that the seated city council can review.

At Thursday's commission meeting, the commission members voted on three main recommendations, from the Contracts & Proposals committee:

a) Firewall finance and information technology functions. This means that no vendor that proposes a finance or IT package can submit a bid proposal for any other "package" of services the city will need.

b) No omnibus proposals will be accepted. No one vendor can submit one large proposal for all of the functional areas. A vendor may, however, submit several proposals for various service packages, but not one that covers them all or most of them.

c) The call center function, which is actually a help desk, will remain under the IT department. However, the public works department would have an emergency call function, which would allow citizens to call at any time to report emergencies or public works issues, like fallen trees or potholes.

The commission decided not to consider the committee's recommendation which would not require disclosures of any financial contributions to political campaigns from vendors who submit proposals.

Bill Riley, who provides pro bono legal counsel to the commission and its committees, said the recommendation was "premature."

All vendors which submit proposals must include its pricing structure over a five-year period. This helps those reviewing the proposals and bids to estimate expenditures during the five-year period, which is beneficial as the city creates and approves its annual budgets.