‘RFPs … We Don’t Need No Stinking RFPs’

PREVEN REPORT--In California, public agencies are required to put major contracts out to bid, so why did the Mayor and City Council of Los Angeles just award a seven-year, sixty-four million dollar contract to Motorola Solutions, Inc. with no request for proposal (RFP)? 

The Council Resolution which authored the deal offers no explanation, asserts no exemption to the competitive bidding requirement, cites no precedent.  

Sixty-four million dollars.  

The annual lease payment of $9.2 million will begin in Fiscal Year 2018-19 and continue until Fiscal Year 2024- 25. 

The purpose of requiring governmental entities to open the contracts process to public bidding, according to an important CA appellate case Konica Business Machines U.S.A., Inc. v. Regents of University of California, is to: 

eliminate favoritism, fraud and corruption; avoid misuse of public funds; and stimulate advantageous market place competition…The importance of maintaining integrity in government and the ease with which policy goals underlying the requirement for open competitive bidding may be surreptitiously undercut, mandate strict compliance with bidding requirements. 

Strict compliance with bidding requirements is not handing out a seven-year, sixty-four million dollar contract with no RFP. 

There’s another name for that. 

• Court Case  

• Resolution 

(Eric Preven and Joshua Preven are public advocates for better transparency in local government and are occasional contributors to CityWatch. A piece they wrote for CityWatch "It’s Time to End LA’s Secret Meetings: What Do City Council Members and LA’s County Supervisors Have to Hide?" won  the LA Press Club award for Online Political Commentary.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

-cw