Selectmen reject firetruck bids again

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BEACON FALLS — For the second time, officials have rejected the bids for a new firetruck and are now planning to take a different approach to buying the vehicle.

The Board of Selectmen last week unanimously rejected, on the recommendation of a consultant, all three of the bids it received for the construction of a new 75-foot quintuple combination pumper firetruck.

Voters previously authorized the town to spend up to $850,000 for the firetruck. In October, the board rejected the three bids the town received because one was too high and the others didn’t meet the required specifications.

All three companies — Rosenbauer New England out of Maine, New England Fire Equipment & Apparatus of out North Haven, and Bulldog Fire Apparatus out of Massachusetts — that responded to the first request for proposals bid on the firetruck a second time.

The town hired Glastonbury-based J. Lyons Fire Consultants to help it review the second round of bids to “provide an unbiased and independent review,” First Selectman Christopher Bielik said.

The consultant’s report states the bidding process was flawed from the start.

“The town-published specification was specific to one manufacturer, (Bulldog Fire Apparatus), therefore making open and competitive bidding challenging for any other manufacturer who might want to submit a proposal,” wrote Jim Lyons, owner of J. Lyons Fire Consultants.

Bulldog Fire Apparatus is a distributor for KME Fire Apparatus.

The report cites a specification for a two-piece front windshield as an example of the specific nature of the bid. Other manufacturers make a one-piece front windshield, the report states.

Lyons wrote by using the bid specifications of one manufacturer, it assured only that manufacturer could meet the full specifications with exception.

The proposal from Bulldog Fire Apparatus met the town’s specifications for the firetruck exactly, the report states.

“It’s obvious both documents came from the same computer specification program and nothing was changed to alter any of the verbiage or technical, proprietary items, to remove those items from the final published document,” Lyons wrote.

Bulldog Fire Apparatus’s bid of $861,824 exceeds the maximum amount the town approved for the firetruck. The company offered to lower the price to $849,474 if the town paid 75 percent of the cost upfront.

That offer did not sit well with either the board or Lyons, who accused the company of being unwilling to negotiate in good faith.

“It would be irresponsible for the town to make a 75 percent prepayment on a contract delivery before we actually receive the vehicle. It is not customary, it is not consistent with good management practices. We would have a very difficult time standing in front of the town and saying that this was a smart idea for us to do,” Bielik said.

In addition to not meeting the specifications, Lyons wrote, the proposals from Rosenbauer New England and New England Fire Equipment & Apparatus had serious flaws.

The proposal from Rosenbauer New England “showed poor attention to detail and was not customer-friendly to follow and understand,” Lyons wrote.

The proposal from New England Fire Equipment & Apparatus showed a “lack of detail” for small things and a “complete gross disregard for not noting items on an exception list,” he wrote.

The board agreed to explore joining a national bid list, such as the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC), to buy the firetruck.

Finance Manager Tom Broesler said there is no cost to any municipality to join and it will save the town from having to send out another request for proposals.

The next step is to see if joining a national bid list has to be approved by voters, Bielik said.

The town has been considering replacing Beacon Hose Company No. 1’s 27-year-old Engine 1 since 2013. Once the truck is finally ordered, it will take between six and nine months to be built, Bielik said.

Although the process seems to be taking a long time, Bielik said, this is the largest single item purchase the town has made in many years. The board wants to be thorough and ensure it is spending money wisely, he said.

“We have to be able to, at the end of the day, stand up in front of the 6,000 people in this town and tell them that we have done the due diligence, we have spent your money wisely, and we have gotten the best deal possible with the best piece of equipment we can possibly get. Right now, I think that we are looking for another way to make that happen,” Bielik said.