By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
An almost evenly divided city council failed to pass a motion during its Tuesday, Oct. 13, meeting to award a pool reconstruction contract to a company owned by a city council member.
The measure before the city council was a resolution “authorizing and directing the interim city manager to award to and execute a contract in the amount of $941,000 with Connected Home Solutions dba (doing business as) Stella’s Pools for design-build services for the Buena Vista Pool Rehabilitation Project.”
After City Secretary Mari Acosta read the heading of the agenda item, Mayor Pro-tem Randy Quinones, who is the District 3 city council representative, said he wished to recuse himself from the discussion. He left his seat on the dais and walked out of the council chambers.
After Quinones left the meeting, Mayor Al Arreola said, “I have a couple
of questions before I ask for a motion. . . I received a lot of calls in regards to the bidding process. . . where did we post this at? Because there was a lot of vendors that wanted to bid into it, and how many vendors did we have at the time?”
Interim City Manager Manuel Chavez replied, “This particular project was open for about six weeks, and it was posted through our normal process. Anyone that was eligible could bid on it, and we only received two bids on this particular project.”
Arreola asked, “And they were both local?”
“One was local,” Chavez replied.
Arreola said, “The other question, and I guess you would probably be the individual to answer it or (City Attorney) Ana (Markowski Smith), is, and I asked the last time, there is no conflict of interest on this or ethics or anything in regards to this?”
Smith answered, “There is a conflict of interest, but that conflict has been disclosed, and the proper waivers have been filed, the proper affidavit, and with that, Texas law permits the individual to move forward, and, as you saw, Councilman Quinones recused himself and is not part of the discussion, which is above and beyond what he needs to do. Everything about the process is transparent and in accordance with the law.”
Arreola commented the city holds all its vendors “to strong accountability” and asked if Quinones is the owner or chief executive officer of the company.
Chavez asked City Purchasing Agent Luis Menchaca to address the mayor’s question.
Arreola commented, “I’ll be honest with you. I don’t have any problems with Randy and his company, but I think it’s an ethical thing or a moral thing or whatever you want to call it. . .”
Menchaca replied, “The information we receive does not normally include the structure for the business. It doesn’t include any information on the president or CEO. The information I can give you is what is shared with us on the document that we received, and that is that it is filed as Connected Home Solutions doing business as Stella’s Pools.”
Arreola asked Chavez, “I guess the final question would be, and seeing that you’ve been here the longest, has it ever been, in the history of Del Rio, where a city councilman receives a contract?”
Chavez replied he did not recall.
Councilman J.P. Sanchez commented, “I would like to say that he (Quinones) did come in below budget. He saved the city almost $600,000 that we’ll be able to utilize someplace else. By going local, the money stays here in Del Rio. By going local, that money that’s being spent by the city will circulate seven times before it leaves Del Rio, generating almost $7 million in commerce, which, in turn, the city will receive appropriate sales tax income from those monies.
“So I applaud Mr. Quinones for giving us a good bid. It was my understanding that the other company in question couldn’t even start (the project) for $1.5 million,” Sanchez added.
Arreola interjected, “I don’t question the deal here, it’s just that, for transparency. . . there are some words out there that we’re doing a brand-new swimming pool, and (we’re) not. It’s refurbishing our infrastructure.
“The other thing is the ethics, and I don’t think it’s ever been done that a city councilman gets awarded a contract of $1 million, and I can live with it, and I know he can do a great job for us, but . . . I received a lot of calls from the community and from outside, and I guess the major concern is, are we all going to hold him to a higher accountability for his work, because remember, at the end of the day, he still sits on the dais as the supervisor of this man (indicating Chavez), and anything goes wrong . . . but, are we, as a council, going to hold him on a higher accountability because he’s also a councilman?
“And this is where, I think, it’s tough for me to swallow because I’ve never been in a situation like this. I understand some other people have gotten contracts, but it’s never the individual that sits on the dais. It’s always somebody else that’s doing it, and, according to the vendors that I heard, they weren’t even aware it was out there advertised,” Arreola said.
Councilman Leno Hernandez interjected, asking how long the bid was out.
Menchaca replied, “This bid was actually posted twice. The first one was around six weeks.”
“And why was it posted twice?” Hernandez asked.
Menchaca said, “The first time, nobody responded.”
Hernandez asked, “And the second time, it was posted for another six weeks?”
Menchaca indicated it was, and Hernandez said, “And even in that 12 weeks, we only received two responses?”
Menchaca again indicated yes.
Menchaca added, “We did reach out, via email, to 15 vendors that specialized in pools.”
Hernandez asked, “Any local out of those 15?”
Menchaca replied, “I can’t tell you specifically how many from local, but I can tell you the amount we did was 15. I want to say at least three or four that we’ve normally worked with and have to do with construction here in Del Rio, but we did do some research so that we could reach the greater Texas area.”
Hernandez asked, “So you didn’t only reach out to one?”
Menchaca indicated it was not just one.
Hernandez said, “So this is the problem that I have, is that we’re over here beating something up that doesn’t really need to be beat up, because we’re doing our due diligence. So we have done our due diligence as far as procuring us a vendor who was willing to do the work. We didn’t stop anybody from submitting a request for qualifications at the time.”
Hernandez pointed out in a community of 50,000 persons, conflicts of interest are bound to arise, especially if specialty services are required and only a handful of companies provide them.
Hernandez added, “It’s not the staff’s fault, and if anything, I mean, I feel I’m sorry that the other businesses didn’t apply. . . We also just recently had the vendors’ meeting at the Spark Lab for people who are interested in doing work for the city of Del Rio to come in and be educated on how they can become vendors for the city of Del Rio. So I feel like we’re providing all the tools available, aside from going and filling out paperwork for folks, like, it’s not the fault that one company is selected.”
He added he believes the issue has nothing to do with Quinones personally and said, “It’s not his fault that he has a business that provides that (service). We find conflicts of interest in every avenue that we need where we’re shopping local, . . . so if we’re going to scrutinize this one, we should scrutinize every single one of them, in my opinion. Or, the other side of that coin is, if we’re going to be confident on the other ones, then we should be confident on this one.”
Menchaca added this year city staff has started posting public notices on the city’s Facebook page, saying, “We know that Facebook is popular and normally, a lot of the public sees it.”
Arreola continued to express his hesitation to approve the contract.
The mayor said, “He’s bringing a contract to us, (but) we are the council that says yes or the council that says no, and this is where I have a – and this is me, I can’t speak for you all, but this is me – I’ve never been caught in this scenario, and you’re telling me that there were so many emails, and I trust in Mr. Menchaca that they were sent out, but there were certain pool organizations (companies) that reached out to me that they weren’t even aware.”
Menchaca reiterated city staff widely distributed requests for the pool work.
Arreola said, “And I go back, I think Councilman J.P. mentioned, the other (vendor) was $1.5 million to start?”
Menchaca said the other bidder also indicated they would take longer on the project.
Menchaca said, “. . . we felt that the best one that met the needs of the city was Connected Home Solutions doing business as Stella’s Pools.”
Hernandez reiterated his belief that conflicts of interest were bound to occur and “the intention is for us to do it with due diligence, with transparency and with the utmost respect to the process.” He again said he believed it is not city staff’s job to call vendors and offer them jobs.
At the end of his commentary, Hernandez said, “I’ll make a motion to approve this item.”
Sanchez gave the second.
Councilwoman Carmen Gutierrez asked to comment and said, “I don’t believe there is a question anymore, since the first time it was brought up, that it was legal. I don’t know if there’s a question that due diligence was done. There’s no question that we’re saving money, either, and it’s great that we can buy local.
“The question that I have is, how would it work? If our mayor pro-tem, who is the owner of this business, and is the direct supervisor of our city manager right now, interim city manager, and if there is a change order or a dispute in the execution of the contract, how would it work? Because this council has hiring and firing authority of the city manager, so that’s the concern that I have,” Gutierrez said.
Hernandez said, “I think that’s a great question for the attorney because I feel like in that case there probably should be safeguards where the decisions that are made with anything, any business involving this particular project would have to be handed over to a foreman and not to the owner specifically. I feel that that’s part of the solution.”
He added the city could specify that Quinones not be part of conversations related to the pool project.
“I think that would solve those particular issues, in my opinion,” Hernandez said.
Arreola asked Smith if she had contacted the attorney general’s office on the issue.
Smith replied, “I did not reach out to the attorney general, but I did speak to Denton Navarro. Councilman Quinones was very careful. Every step he took, he consulted with the city secretary regarding the conflict of interest. It very clear, (in) Texas Local Government Code, I think it’s Section 171, . . . if you think you can move forward without letting your position as city council interfere, that’s a personal decision.
“And I think Councilman Quinones made it, and Councilman Hernandez, because at some point you’re discussing ethics, which is a completely different issue. In terms of his control or his management over the city manager, that’s simple enough. You all are here to safeguard that, so if you believe he is acting outside his authority, for retaliation, or whatever, then you guys step up, because you are the keepers of ethics to the council.
“Additionally, we have had situations where we’ve had members of council file affidavits of conflicts of interest, but the contract didn’t consummate. They weren’t the successful bidder, but it has happened and in this case it just happened that Councilman Quinones was the successful bidder,” Smith concluded.
Arreola said, “Anybody else, questions, comments? If not, there’s already a first and a second. All in favor?”
Hernandez, Sanchez and Councilman LeRoy Briones voted in favor of Hernandez’s motion to approve the contract, and Arreola and Gutierrez voted against it. Quinones did not vote, as he was out of the room, and Councilwoman Elsa Reyes was absent from the meeting.
After the vote, Arreola said, “So it’s 3-2. It passes.”
But later in the meeting, Acosta said she wanted to address the item again.
Acosta said, “The votes were three in favor and two nos. I believe that by the city charter it’s required to have four votes in order for (something) to pass.”
Hernandez asked what would be required, and Smith said, “It didn’t pass, but it can be brought back at the next meeting.”
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
