by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
A bill that would favor local businesses seeking public work passed two City Council committees Monday and now only needs the approval of the full Council Tuesday to become law.
The legislation, sponsored by former Council President Daniel Davis, passed the Council’s Rules Committee 7-0 Monday morning and — after much debate and varied opinions from local construction and engineering firms — the Finance Committee 5-2 Monday afternoon. Finance Chair Michael Corrigan and Council member Stephen Joost voted against the bill.
Davis’ bill would double the points awarded to local firms that bid on City-funded projects. Davis contends the legislation will help keep money generated by Duval County taxpayers in Jacksonville. However, Joost called it a “myopic” view of the economy and one that contradicts the stance that City leaders are looking to put Jacksonville on the international economic map through the activity at the port and Cecil Commerce Center.
“If you want this to be an international city, you have to look beyond the borders,” said Joost. “We are in a global economy. This is myopic and protecting local jobs goes against that.”
According to the City’s procurement rules, firms bidding on City jobs are evaluated on a 100-point system using 10 different criteria. Currently, a company headquartered in Jacksonville automatically gets 3-6 out of a possible 10 “proximity” points. Davis’ bill will double that and award nothing to firms that haven’t had an office in Florida for at least the previous 12 months.
One of the other criteria used by the City’s Professional Services Evaluation Committee in awarding bids and contracts is the final price. Davis stressed his bill would not affect that criteria.
“We are not talking about low bid. This is a very subjective process,” said Davis, who is executive director of the Northeast Florida Builders Association. He also stressed that he does not favor sacrificing quality of work over anything. “I wholeheartedly do not believe in that.”
Joost said the bill will unfairly reward companies just because they are local, regardless of what they will do the project for or at what level. He also worries that Jacksonville-based companies will be affected when seeking jobs in other parts of the state.
“When you start this never-ending spiral, you are going to hurt companies in Jacksonville. The way to create jobs in the open market is not to protect markets,” said Joost, adding he can envision a scenario where other cities in Florida start enacting legislation to protect their local companies, thus hurting a Jacksonville company’s ability to get work in cities such as Orlando, Tampa or Miami.
Doug Layton, an original project manager with the Better Jacksonville Plan who is now with A.E. Comm, said it will be nearly impossible for an outside firm to get work on a City project.
“I don’t know of another city that defines ‘local’ the way we are getting ready to,” said Layton. “Outside companies will start 2-3 points behind and they can’t compete with large local firms.”
Davis said he will tweak the bill and bring those changes to the full Council Tuesday.
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