07/29/2013
To all members of PANO:
As you are no doubt aware, my company, APE Inc., filed a lawsuit requesting a Preliminary Injunction to halt the award of the Uniform Voucher Contract. It was done for several reasons, some of which I list below:
I discovered and informed the City (Purchasing Dept.) that my competitor’s bid was full of mathematical errors and incorrect totals. Purchasing’s calculations confirmed that this competitor’s bid figures were incorrect. The City then immediately notified my competitor about the errors on their bid.
This competitor then advised the City that the method (FORMULA) used by Purchasing to determine the net prices was wrong (the bid requested a mfg. list price, the discount % offered and the net price to the officers). They further stated that they would send to both Purchasing and the NOPD an excel spreadsheet with “AVERAGE DISCOUNT” figures matching both the dollar totals and the discount percentages on the bid “to the penny”.
We obtained this spreadsheet information after two Public Records requests. Said spreadsheet was "INADVERTANLY" omitted by the City from its response to APE’s first Public Records Request. Please remember: this (post-bid) spreadsheet was supposed to match the “BID” in both dollar totals and discount percentages to the penny (it does neither). The spreadsheets PRICES were manipulated in an attempt to make the dollar totals match those on the actual bid. By doing that, the discount percentages do not match the percentages as indicated on the bid. It should be noted that the dollar totals were close in spite of the fact that the spreadsheet had 3 different items missing (that were on the bid).
During the Court proceedings in May, the City Attorney testified to the Court that APE’s concerns about this post-bid spreadsheet were “IRRELEVANT” and just a “smoke screen” to distract the Court. The City Attorney further testified that the City (NOPD Officers) would be charged the ACTUAL BID prices when the contract was awarded. By testifying that the spreadsheet was irrelevant, a smoke screen, and would not be considered in awarding the bid, I believe the City misdirected the Court. Apparently, since the Court was informed that the City (NOPD) would be charged the prices in the ACTUAL BID, there was no legal justification to halt the award.
In direct contradiction to the City Attorney’s testimony, AFTER THE BID WAS AWARDED the City accepted this post-bid Excel spreadsheet, which subsequently became part of the contract. I just found out on Friday that the City sent a letter to the Judge advising that they (the City) "ACCIDENTLY" forgot to inform the court about a letter they had in their possession during the time of the litigation (which supposedly) had this post-bid spreadsheet attached. We obtained this information after yet another Public Records request. I intend to post (in the very near future) a link to all of the information so members can to see the extraordinary efforts and steps the City has resorted to in their efforts to award this bid to this vendor.
The prices being charged to the officers are NOT the prices that were submitted on the bid, and NOT the prices on which the bid was awarded.
As an example of what is currently happening, the officers are being charged $37.65 for a pair of trousers that were priced at $22.50 on the actual bid. They are being overcharged $15.15 for these trousers, and that's just one example.
We will continue to fight to right this wrong but as of now, the Officers of the NOPD have to understand that they are the victims.
Charles "Big Charlie" Hewlett
