Clay and Bruce –

 

I have had a chance to review the specifications, and most of it looks really good.  I did have a few observations and recommendations:

 

*	If possible, please add the following line to AB-2, item 3 and IB-4, item K:  “All bonds must be signed original documents to be valid; copies of bonds are not acceptable.”  There
have been some reports of companies re-using old copies of bid bonds, and passing off photocopied or faxed copies as legitimate.  Should a company have the foresight to compile a bid
on-time and the ethic to obtain a legitimate bond, there should be no issues complying with this requirement.  We have already modified our base internal spec to include this rule.
*	AB-2, item 4 and AB-2, item 8 seem to be in conflict with regard to who disseminates bid specifications.  In the past, Vitruvian Bid Documents have been available strictly through
Public Works as a control element.  I assume this practice would hold true for 1C.
*	Related to the previous item, AB-2, item 4 specifies that plans, specs, and bid documents “may be downloaded on line for no cost.”  This would be a departure from what has been done
in the past, as well.  It may not be impossible to post a highly compressed file on demandstar or bidsync.  However, bandwidth requirements would preclude this from being posted to the
town’s website.  If this was included in error, never mind.  But if we are planning on any sort of online posting, we may need to discuss that a little first.
*	It was my understanding that the pre-bid meeting is non-mandatory.  I didn’t know if we wanted to communicate this or not, but IB-2, item E doesn’t specifically state one way or another.
 If we don’t want to say anything, that’s fine, but I wanted to bring it to your attention in case we did.
*	IB-5, item U says that bid bonds would be returned to all but the three lowest bidders within three days of the bid opening.  I would recommend that this requirement be omitted.  Our
typical practice is to return bid bonds upon execution of the contract.  Returning the bond would forfeit our only leverage should multiple bidders be unresponsive or their bid be invalid
for any reason.

 

Those were my observations.  Please don’t hesitate to let Jason or myself know if there are other questions, or if we may be of any service.

 

Thanks, and everyone have a great weekend!

 

Matthew E. McCombs

Management Analyst

Town of Addison

(972) 450-7090

Fax: (972) 450-7065

mmccombs@addisontx.gov

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