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No justifications for asphalt purchases

Municipal CAO explains the more than decade-long relationship with Alpine Paving
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There are no Sole Source Justification Reports to explain why Whistler only bought its asphalt from Alpine Paving over the years.

The reports, which must be written when there is only one source and the municipality is buying something over $25,000, are part of the current procurement policy at the hall.

In a recent sit-down interview with Pique , Whistler's Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Bill Barratt explained why the reports don't exist.

"No, because the council were aware we were using Alpine," said Barratt. "Everyone uses Alpine... They knew they were the only source."

This week Pique's Freedom of Information Request for some of the Sole Source Justification Reports came back as: "There are no records responsive to your request."

When asked about due process, and not following policy as outlined in the Procurement document which has been in place for the last five years, Barratt said:

"Why waste our time doing that when the price is negotiated and it's not that out of line with the year before and the year before?"

Now Barratt wants to set the record straight on how the municipality bought its asphalt every year.

It's a subject that has pitted council members against each other and added an unprecedented level of scrutiny at municipal hall, given that Whistler's newest neighbourhood was built just a stone's throw away from the asphalt plant.

Up until two years ago, few people in Whistler knew there was a plant operating beside the town dump, churning out asphalt and keeping Whistler's roads up to snuff both for the municipality and private contractors.

Barratt said it's "shallow thinking" to say Whistler could have saved money on asphalt by going out to a competitive bidding process or tendering the contracts over the years.

Barratt, who is at the tail end of a 30 plus year career at municipal hall, took aim at the critics in the community who have been pointing the finger at municipal hall in dealing with Alpine Paving as its only source for asphalt for more than a decade.

To truck asphalt up the highway, particularly before the upgrades were done, could not only compromise the quality of the product but also drive up costs.

"There was no way you were going to get multiple bids or any bids out of Vancouver...," said Barratt.

"To suggest that going out to tender you'd somehow get something else all those years... From where? Nobody would provide it.

"Going back in the past and rewriting history as if that's fact is just a waste of time because it has no basis on reality."

The evidence, he said, is that when council ordered a public bidding process for asphalt earlier this year, the first tender ever to be issued for asphalt, only one company bid on it - Alpine Paving. When it issued the second tender, after rejecting Alpine's first bid, three companies bid on the work and Alpine was the cheapest.

Barratt pointed to a recent North Vancouver tender that states tenders will only be considered from paving contractors who own or operate their plant within the Metro Vancouver geographical area to "ensure a continuous and uninterrupted supply of asphalt."

The president of the B.C. Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association Jack Davidson said this week that it is possible to haul asphalt up from the city but only on hot days so that asphalt can be kept to a certain temperature. The trucks cannot control that temperature.

"The issue is, I think, that what we're trying to do is lessen our greenhouse gases (GHG) and think environmentally and try and lesson our carbon output," said Davidson. "And all that trucking is putting carbon and other pollutants into the air."

So every year municipal staff would negotiate with Alpine Paving and arrive at a price. It was, said Barratt, done to ensure Whistler could secure the best price given that there was only one source and no viable alternative.

According to municipal financial statements, which detail the payments for goods or services over the years, Whistler annually spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on Alpine Paving. The 2009 payment was more than $650,000. In 2006 it was more than $880,000. As far back as 1999 the payment was over half a million dollars.

Municipal policy states that any purchases under $100,000 must have a minimum of three quotes. Purchases over $100,000 require a public tender.

The document states: "Every effort must be made to use competitive processes in order to find potential suppliers. However, there will be circumstances where the purchase of a product or a service fulfills a certain function for which there are no substitutes or are available from only one source."

When there is one source, a Sole Source Justification Report must be written for purchases over $25,000.

Barratt said that though the municipality spends hundreds of thousands on asphalt each year, most of the municipal work is done on a piecemeal basis - small projects completed over the course of the paving season.

The larger projects, like the resurfacing of the daylots, are tendered to a general contractor. Asphalt is one component of that tender.

When asked how he knows Whistler got the best price, Barratt said:

"I can remember asking that very question of my staff... Alpine Paving, compared to Vancouver, their prices were between ten to 15 per cent higher."

Last week council awarded the municipal asphalt contract to Alpine Paving for 2011, despite concerns from several councillors and despite the fact that it is in legal proceedings with the owner.

The asphalt will be trucked from Squamish, as stipulated in the tender. There is a cease and desist order in place at the Whistler plant, though it continues to operate.

The president of the B.C. Road Builders, Davidson, said: "For a community, and Whistler isn't the only one to say 'we don't want an asphalt plant in our backyard', is, I think, selfish.

"They need to respect the needs of the province, and Canada, and the world, to reduce GHG and other emissions and reduce the trucking if they can."