Mayor Alvin Brown will have to wait “until further notice” for a recommendation about which company — Global Spectrum or SMG — should become the City’s next facilities manager.
The City Professional Services Evaluation Committee was scheduled to decide on its recommended candidate Thursday but deferred the discussion because of a protest by SMG, which holds the current contract.
SMG protested a recommendation made Monday in favor of Global Spectrum by City Chief Financial Officer Ronnie Belton and Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Karen Bowling.
Belton and Bowling comprise a subcommittee to score the bids.
Their scores averaged 79.5 for Global Spectrum and 75.5 for SMG on a 100-point scale that measured 10 categories.
The full committee will send its recommendation to Brown for a final selection, followed by fee and contract negotiations.
Global Spectrum and SMG responded to a Request for Proposal for management of the City’s sports and entertainment venues, consisting of EverBank Field, Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville, the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts, the Equestrian Center, the Ritz Theatre and the Osborn Center.
On Monday, SMG filed a 12-page protest, along with more than 150 pages of exhibits, requesting Global Spectrum’s proposal be disqualified and an extension of three business days to provide supplemental documentation.
During the meeting Thursday, Greg Pease, City procurement chief, said the deferral is “until further notice.”
He said after the meeting that he hoped to schedule a formal protest hearing within the next couple of weeks to allow SMG an opportunity to explain the protest and Global Spectrum the chance to defend against the allegations.
In the protest, SMG asserts that Global Spectrum’s proposal failed to respond to the RFP and in some instances “appears to present inaccurate or incomplete information” in the areas of compliance, operational matters and nonoperational matters.
Whether the protest hearing takes place in a special meeting or as part of a regularly scheduled committee meeting will depend on whether it delays other committee work, according to Pease.
“There really is no set time. I think we would like to do it as quickly as possible but we want to make sure that we are reviewing everything very carefully. The next step is probably to have that protest hearing,” he said.
Pease said he would like to have the hearing next week or the following week.
The committee typically meets 10 a.m. each Thursday at the Ed Ball Building.
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