1982-04-21 Regular Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

• • • Minutes, Regular Meeting, La Porte City Council April 21, 1982, Page 8 Malone: Aye Longley: Aye Gay: Aye Skelton: Aye Westergren: Aye Cline: Aye Cline: All those opposed will state nay. Matuszak: Nay Pfeiffer: Nay Graves: Nay Cline: The motion carries. Askins: Mr. Matuszak made a statement as quoting me as having said last week that this was a formality to circumvent bidding. I would not want that statement to go unchallenged. I did say it was a formality, but it was not intended to cir- cumvent the bidding; it was intended to comply and it does. It does comply with the bid laws and I would like to re- • empathize as I did last week, this is not a contract, no element of it is a contract. It was a trip to the market, so to speak, to obtain open-ended quotes which are available for acceptance later if we choose to do so. It is the nature of the market, particularly with petroleum products, that there is much price instability. I agree with Councilperson Matuszak that you might want to instruct the purchasing agent to agressively test the market from time to time as to per- haps more favorable quotes being available, as any business would do. And this is a business. Certainly there is nothing in the bid law, since we have complied with the bid law, to prevent the purchasing agent from testing the market for better prices. Matuszak: I didn't mean to directly quote you. I guess it was my term. I should have used it. Cline: Mr. Askins, what you are saying is that we are not, in essence, signing a contract for a year to keep buying this material at this price? Askins: That is correct. This was done as it has been on an annual basis as a method of obtaining quotes from bidders through a bid publication. We can use these, but if we can better them, we can do so and certainly should do so. • Graves: In that sense, then, can we go back out for bids?