A decision about the location for the Supervisor of Elections center has been turned over to Mayor Alvin Brown's administration.
Members of a joint City Council committee meeting heard proposals Wednesday from three landlords interested in securing a deal to house the supervisor's warehouse functions on their sites.
Members of the Council Finance, Rules and Transportation, Energy and Utilities committees attended.
Each site has a corresponding piece of legislation for a contract, and each was deferred.
Chris Hand, Brown's chief of staff, then called on the City's Real Estate Department to review the proposals and return to Council with legislation reflecting its choice.
Hand said the administration will introduce legislation with a recommendation no later than July 23, the first full Council meeting of the 2013-14 year.
The competition for the site includes proposals from Demetree Brothers Inc. for space at the Southgate Shopping Plaza, which formerly housed Clerk of Court functions; GIV Imeson LLC for space at One Imeson Center, a former Sears catalog distribution center; and Terranova Corp., owner of the Gateway Shopping Center, which has housed the office since 2006. Terranova took over Gateway last year after foreclosure proceedings.
Financial figures to determine the best value for the City continue to change, making it unclear which proposal offers the City the best deal.
A Council Auditor's Office side-by-side comparison using June 14 figures ended up obsolete because language in the deals was changed this week.
Asked by Council if the numbers presented Wednesday in the deals were firm, each representative indicated they were comfortable with the current numbers but change was possible.
The four-hour meeting was attended by 16 of the 19 Council members. Many voiced displeasure that the situation has dragged on and was not handled as a function of the executive branch.
"It's perfectly clear this was kicked down the road for more than a year," Council member Ray Holt said.
Several questioned why the issue was not handled through a request for proposal, calling it a "failure." Hand disagreed.
The current Gateway rent is about $51,000 a month. The lease ended in October 2011, was extended six months and has since continued month-to-month.
Hand said leases typically are not done through the request-for-proposal process and would have been problematic because it has been "contaminated" with outside involvement.
"It's been very political since Day One," Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said after the meeting, citing elected officials' presence at meetings with the administration.
"Unfortunately, it's not just numbers," he said.
Finance Committee Chair John Crescimbeni, who ran the joint meeting, said he also thought politics has played a role.
"I think there are some politics involved in this. I think there are plenty of players here who have an allegiance to one of these locations and it doesn't have anything to do with what's in the best interest of the taxpayers or what the numbers are," he said after the meeting.
The three pieces of legislation were deferred instead of withdrawn. Several members cited the time sensitivity should new legislation be introduced.
Council member Stephen Joost told the committee he wanted a decision from the administration and Holland, who said he would have an opinion after meeting with Council auditors to review the deals.
Holland said he planned to meet with the auditors Monday morning.
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