Port St. Lucie debate over contracts, bids heats up in latest City Council meeting

PORT ST. LUCIE — An ongoing debate over the process by which the city awards construction contracts spilled over Tuesday into the City Council's first ever informal meeting, an addition to the council calendar intended to increase transparency.

The 4½-hour meeting was dominated by the discussion, which included accusations lobbed between council members and disagreements between two city administrators.

Staff presentation leads to debate

City procurement staff made it about halfway through a PowerPoint presentation, detailing the three types of construction bidding processes, before council members broke off into discussion of the controversial $16 million Public Works Department building that prompted the presentation.

Over the course of three meetings since December, council members have fiercely debated, and ultimately voted down, the contract to design and build a new facility due to concerns over cost and questions around the evaluation process.

After comments from council members Anthony Bonna, Stephanie Morgan and Vice Mayor Jolien Caraballo, suggesting possible changes to the way the process was conducted for the Public Works building, Mayor Shannon Martin fired back, questioning why disagreement over one contract should lead to a widespread change in the process "even though we've had no other issues" with it.

"Our system is not broken," Martin argued. "For me, it's really troubling and it's really disappointing."

Changes that could be made to process

Caraballo had said it would be "helpful" to see comments from members of the evaluation committee on their scoresheets. Morgan said there is a need to see detailed scores for all bidders, not just the top-ranked one. And Bonna, as he has done before, stressed the need to always have five evaluators for major projects, not just three as there was with the Public Works building.

Those changes, according to Martin, could make the process longer and more complicated. Responding directly to Bonna, the mayor said finding five qualified evaluators would take time.

"We're making this a bigger animal and, for me, it's not right. It's not right," Martin said.

Return to previous issues, two options or three

Bonna then returned conversation to where the issue was left at the last regular City Council meeting.

"I'll just be candid, since we're laying it all out on the table," Bonna said.

He recalled being informed by Interim City Attorney Richard Berrios that there were three options. As Berrios described it, according to Bonna, the council could have approved the contract, denied the contract or restarted negotiations to seek a lower price.

City Manager Jesus Merejo, however, had informed council members that only the first two options — accept or deny — were on the table, according to Martin and Caraballo. Bonna asked for Berrios to speak at that meeting, but he never did, and eventually Martin insisted that the council move on to other business.

"He wasn't allowed to talk," Bonna said Tuesday.

Feeling that the council had not been given one of the options, Bonna on Tuesday called it "kind of a rigged vote."

That accusation drew the ire of Caraballo and Martin, who disagreed and said they were "offended" and "very offended," respectively.

What followed was a back-and-forth over qualifications, with Caraballo and Martin referring to their roughly two decades of combined experience on the council and Bonna defending his qualifications as an equal on the council despite less experience. Morgan said she can "understand how Anthony feels" because she has heard similar comments, adding that they can be "condescending."

City manager and interim city attorney disagree

Not long after, Merejo said he disagrees with a recent memo by Berrios, laying out the three bidding options Bonna described.

"I still stand by that, and I will continue to stand by that," Merejo said.

The public conflict between the two administrators concerned at least one council member.

"Jesus, I was just taken aback by your comment that you were against the city attorney's memo," Morgan said. "That just kind of blew me away."

Berrios, in his first comments on the matter, later said that there may be a difference between what is legally possible and what is advisable from the administrative point of view that Merejo may have operated from.

"I don't want this to appear as if we're at odds or pitted against each other," Berrios stressed.

More: Port St. Lucie rejects $16 million bid for Public Works building amid price, process concerns

More: Two PSL city councilmembers oppose price tag for new Public Works facility; vote delayed

Looking forward

Councilman David Pickett, who along with Morgan mostly listened to back-and-forth among the mayor and the other two councilmembers, said he is somewhat encouraged by the spirited conversation.

"It will be a better process because of the pain that we're going through right now, and if that's what it takes to save the taxpayer money — us being upset with each other for a little bit — then I'm willing to take that risk.

"And if it means making our staff better at their jobs and the process, I'm willing to take that risk," Pickett said. "So to say I'm unhappy about us being here today and this process, no, because it's just going to make a better process for us and make us a better organization."

Some reconciliation was reached by the end of the meeting, including a hug shared between Bonna and Caraballo, who apologized if she had offended him by her comments about experience.

Tuesday's informal meeting was something new for Port St. Lucie, an addition aimed at creating more government transparency by allowing early talks with staff and allowing for more substantive group discussion than there often is time for during regular meetings.

No official action was taken, since that's not legally permitted in the informal setting.

Wicker Perlis is TCPalm's Watchdog Reporter for St. Lucie County. You can reach him at wicker.perlis@tcpalm.com and 504-331-0516.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: See why a Port St. Lucie informal meeting led to such heated debate