Santa Rosa Commission re-ranks bids for dispatch center to put local company first

Following a long and sometimes angry debate, the Santa Rosa County Commission voted Thursday to re-think the way it had calculated a competitive bidding tabulation and re-rank a local company from second place to first.

The shuffling of numbers means that the Escambia County-based Caldwell Associates group will be first in line to negotiate for a contract to build a consolidated emergency operations/dispatch center in Milton, a project that County Commissioner Sam Parker said could cost up to $15 million. Losing out on the deal was Clemons Rutherford & Associates of Tallahassee, which is now considered the county's second choice to do the work.

Parker, who along with Commissioner Kerry Smith and Chairman Colten Wright voted in favor of looking differently at an original tabulation of votes that made Clemons Rutherford the bid winner, noted that "one outlying score" had prevented Caldwell from winning the bid in the first place.

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Four of five commissioners originally ranked Caldwell or Clemons Rutherford first or second among five companies bidding for the project, with three of those listing the local firm first. Commissioner James Calkins, however, had placed Caldwell fifth among five companies in the running, which threw off the math and, by virtue of a calculation making the low score the winner, slotted Clemons Rutherford as first.

Parker suggested the bid should go to the company that had received the three No. 1 votes, and Calkins heatedly objected.

"I find this absolutely disturbing this is even being brought up," Calkins said. "The candidates that put bids in on this knew the rules and now you want to change it. This is absolutely disturbing and disgusting and the citizens will be fully outraged on this."

Calkins went on to accuse Parker of wanting to change the rules of the bidding process "to get his preferred candidate" the construction job.

"I sit up here constantly and deal with so much unfairness," he said. "You can't do this and if you do this the board will get sued and you will lose a lawsuit. ... This will tell every company in Santa Rosa County, anyone that places a bid, this will tell them that this is rigged ... you're proving it right now."

County staff members assured board members that it is within their discretion to decide how competitive bids for county work are tabulated.

Parker maintained his composure in the face of the Calkins' criticism, but hinted that he believed Calkins might have had an ulterior motive in putting Caldwell at the bottom of his list of companies competing for the EOC/dispatch center job.

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"The fact that you ranked them dead last, No. 5, I'm not going to make innuendos or try to pretend I know your motivations, but some people shared with me they thought it was because they learned this firm was working on the Medical Examiner's Office and there was some rub between you and the former administrator."

Calkins was an outspoken critic of former County Administrator Dan Schebler, who resigned his position under fire in 2021 and later went on to work for the First Circuit Medical Examiner's Office based in Escambia County.

Parker concluded that he did not know and did not care what had caused Calkins to vote the way he did, but Commissioner Smith would say later that no one, Calkins included, had thought at the time the five companies made their presentations to the County Commission that the Caldwell group was not among the two best qualified for the job.

"It's obvious that one company was given a five that wasn't deserved," he said. "He (Calkins) even said as much."

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Chairman Wright also wondered aloud Thursday about Calkins motivations.

"I have a hard time understanding how you could rank Caldwell No. 5," he said.

Parker seemed resigned to the fact that Calkins' supporters will line up at a future board meeting to criticize members for changing the method of tabulating the bid scores — Smith said Thursday afternoon he was already receiving angry emails — but he pointed out that selecting a local company will keep an estimated $1 million in revenues in the community.

"They don't have slogans like 'buy local' and 'shop local' for no reason," he said.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Santa Rosa Commissioners rethink bids on operations/dispatch center