Purpose of Report: To accept bid for Animal Transport Boxes

Background: On March 4, 2002, at 3:00 p.m., bids were opened in the Stillwater Municipal Building for two chassis mount animal transport boxes. The Animal Control Division of the Stillwater Police Department was granted $28,000 for the purchase and installation of two animal transport boxes. The specifications were written in a manner that most vendors would be able to respond. Invitation to bid packets were mailed to three vendors. Only one vendor responded.

Discussion: The specifications required the vendor to bid in three parts: 1. Bid the price of the transport boxes; 2. Bid the cost of the box to be installed by the vendor at their facility, and; 3. Bid the cost of shipping the boxes to be installed by the buyer.

The vendor does not charge to install the boxes at their facility. The cost to ship the boxes is $325.

To enable the boxes to be installed by the vendor, first the chassis mount transport boxes currently mounted on the animal control trucks would have to be removed by Stillwater Fleet Maintenance. To be made road-worthy after removal of chassis, the trucks would have to be rewired and bumpers added to be compliant with State laws and regulations. Woodson, Texas is close to Abilene and is about a 6-hour drive. To accomplish this, two trips would have to be made to Woodson, including at least two nights in a motel room each trip for whoever drives the trucks. Fleet Maintenance Superintendent, John Maehs, stated that he believed it would be unsafe to drive the trucks to Texas without the beds. To install beds or have chassis switched out in Texas, the beds or the old units would then have to be shipped back to Stillwater.

The bid response is as follows:

Budget Impact: This item requires no new appropriation or budget amendment and should not affect year end projected balances.

Alternatives:

1. Reject bid and resubmit at a later date.
2. Accept bid option #2 to have the vendor install the boxes at their facility.
3. Accept bid option #3 to ship boxes to Stillwater to be installed by Fleet Maintenance.

Recommendation: Staff recommends accepting bid with option #3 of having the boxes shipped and installed in Stillwater. This decision is based on the hidden costs of having them installed by the vendor and also due to safety issues. The cost of removal of the old units and installation of the new units will come from the remaining $13,155 left in allocated money for this project.

Recommended by:

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Carl Weinaug,
City Manager