New city policy on awarding bids will have unintended consequences

A new city administration policy was announced at a special city council meeting on Tuesday.
And it’s one that we think seriously needs to be revisited.
The meeting was held to OK a tentative contract with two bidders to do work on an upcoming sewer repair project.
In the past, the city administration, through the city manager or a department head, presented a recommendation on which contractor bidder the city council should select.
It was still up to the council to make the final decision, but at least they had some guidance.
Normally, it’s a routine matter. This is the way most cities operate: department heads giving their recommendation and the mayor and city council acting on that recommendation.
But now, City Manager Katrina Powell said that based on the advice of the city attorney, her administration will no longer give council a recommendation on who to hire.
That decision will be up to the council with no direction from the city administration.
Why?
City Attorney Travis Mihelick said the new policy is based on past experiences.
There are a couple of problems with this new policy, which is why we think it needs to be thought out a little more.
First, the city council and mayor are not experts in many of the projects and services that are bid out. Instead, they rely on the expertise of the city administration to give direction and recommendations.
Most cities we know of do it that way, unless there is now a new way of thinking in municipal government circles.
A bigger problem, as we see it, is this new policy inadvertently opens the door to corruption.
Before we go further with this thought, let us say that we are not accusing anyone in local elected office to being corrupt or susceptible of being corrupted.
But knowing human nature, it is not inconceivable that somewhere down the road there might be some who are so inclined. It’s certainly not unheard of.
What we mean by a corrupting factor is that bidders on projects can approach elected officials who are the decision makers to vote in favor of them via generous campaign donations.
In fact, it’s not illegal for contractors and business owners, and their family and friends, to make donations to candidates. It happens on all levels of government, local, state and national. Just check out numerous stories of elected officials accepting donations from high-powered lobbyists and businesses.
We can foresee local officials being easily influenced by the donations and articulating a reason for accepting a contractor’s bid that may not be the lowest. Oh, they’ll present their reason in words to make it look as if even though it’s a higher bid, the work quality will be better and hence in the long run worth more bang for the buck.
It will all sound very reasonable.
Hamtramck’s situation, for now, is a little more complicated since there is a state-appointed Transition Advisory Board that could reject contract decisions and make the council revisit the matter.
But the TAB is a temporary thing. We bet that in two years when a new governor is elected the TAB will be dissolved.
The reason we expect the city administration to have a hand in contract recommendations is not only is it the expert in such matters, there are layers of vetting to prevent a city department head from being corrupted.
For instance, a recommendation by a city department head must also meet approval with the city manager. That recommendation is then vetted by the city council and mayor.
And if the council goes against a recommendation, they will have a lot of explaining to do.
And after that, there is always the press and local government watchdogs looking over financial decisions.
As for the reason given to why there is a new policy, City Attorney Mihelick said it was because of past experiences. What experiences? What contracts?
If he is saying there are current contracts that came about under questionable circumstances, then it is up to the city manager to deal with it and take corrective action.
Bottom line here is that the city administration and city attorney need to reconsider this policy. We see it leading to a very slippery slope.