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During tonight's meeting, the majority of the city council went against a motion made by councilman Johnny Rendon to award a $66,000 contract to a Mr. Nick Benavides for the maintenance of Zacate creek. Once Rendon's motion was voted down, Councilwoman Espinoza made another motion to instead award the contract to the lowest bidder, JR Landscaping. This was quickly approved ; I believe the vote was 6-2. It was very interesting to see several council members debate the issue with most of them making it known that they did not agree with staff's recommendation. City Manager Villarreal, the Director of Environmental Services both tried to persuay the council to follow staff's recommendations to no avail.
Councilman San Miguel said that he thought the council should be more objective instead of being too subjective at times. He questioned how many times in the past had a higher bidder been awarded a contract based mostly on subjectivity or "opinions". I was unable to ascertain what the lowest bid went for, although obviously it was for less than $66,000. Another very intriguing bit of information that came out during the back and forth between the council and staff was that, in the past, Nick Benavides had been awarded the Zacate Creek contract for a whopping $132,000. That's unbelievably more than twice what he was asking for this time around.
In this particular case, I can at least point to a reason (lowest bid) for the city council voting as they did. Too often it's pretty difficult to figure out what in the world they're thinking. Hopefully, we'll get to see a little bit more common sense and less ulterior motives. Keep your fingers crossed and your eyes and ears open.
Congratulations to Councilwoman Cindy Espinoza and Councilman Charlie San Miguel and other council members for speaking out on behalf of all the small companies in Laredo. Many trying and unable to get jobs with the City of Laredo due to politics like in this case. Congratulations as well to JR Landscaping for standing his ground and making his voice heard. Shame on you Councilman Rendon, Mr Ria -Director of Environmental services, Mr. Carlos Villarreal and Mr Nick Benavides for what is obviously a plan to discredit JR Landscaping for your own personal interest or hidden agenda. Shame on you Nick Benavides for stealing a whopping $132,000 for years from the City of Laredo and the citizens of Laredo. Today City Council made Laredo PROUD!! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteUnless, I missed it, the Laredo Morning Times had absolutely nothing in today's paper about the city council meeting. It was bound to happen, the blogs are way better than the Times at informing the public. And they raised the cost to 75cents?
ReplyDeleteThat's why Laredo never progresses due to the fact we have people like Mr Rendon and Mr. Calos Villarreal in charge of our city. If you want Mr. Benavides to do work for the city of Laredo then I highly suggest that Mr. Rendon and Mr. Calos Villarreal and Mr. Ria pay out of there pockets $132,000.00 a year for Mr. Benavides and not the pockets of the city of Laredo. I saw the city council meeting on Monday and you could see how Mr. Carlos Villarrea, Mr. Rendon, & Mr. Ria (I could not understand what Mr. Ria was saying due to his strong accent)they had no legitimate excuse to not hire the other company other then for the own personal agenda. Do you have to be a rocket scientist to be able to cut the creek? Is Mr. Nick Benavides a rocket scientist? Give me a break!! FYI City Council members, when you see a staff recommendation over a lower bidder ask questions and make decisions based on facts not on opinions or "he said- she said" scenario. Lets move forward Laredo
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