Unreality procurement TV

This story gets a bit personal, not in the sense of my own personal interests, but in the sense that I have become a bit player in a much larger drama. In involves an ongoing bid process that arises from special legislation to authorize an RFP solicitation to design, build, construct, operate, maintain and finance a new high school facility on Guam.

The procurement process has gone through an initial analysis and ranking of acceptable offerors, and negotiation of all terms necessary to render an award and tender a contract to the selected best most qualified offeror. Along the way there have been two protests by two other offerors, and a court appeal by one of them that ended in a technical dismissal, all of which provided important new material for inclusion and discussion in the draft upcoming new version of the Guam Procurement Process Primer.

At this point, the government's retained bond counsel has decided that the law applicable to this one procurement needed to be changed to remove any possibility that the contract, when awarded, could not be terminated or declared null or void. He opined that this was necessary in order to obtain an "unqualified" opinion for the bond that will be used by the selected offeror to be commercially marketable.

There is disagreement whether any other offeror will need such an opinion, but bond council has stated that, in his opinion, and his inside knowledge of details of all the offerors which must remain undisclosed, all offerors are similarly required to obtain such an unqualified opinion to obtain the financing they have proposed in their respective proposals.

The solution proposed by the bond counsel, and embodied in legislation proposed by the Governor, was sent to the Guam legislature with request for enactment. The transmittal letter stated that the legislation would prohibit any protest of the solicitation. Executive branch testimony was to the effect that protests would be allowed and that the sole intent of the legislation was to eliminate the remedy, allowed under Guam law, for a court or other reviewing body to terminate or declare null and void any contract made in consequence of an award.

In this context, and after amendments conforming the language to that sole intent, amongst other matters, the proposed bill was passed.

The up front and personal part of this for your blawger is that he appeared before the legislature and was offered an opportunity to offer suggestions for some of the proposed amendments.

One consequence of his interjection into that process was the following unreal TV footage, and radio interview, links to which, as well as other news articles, follow:



Radio Interview with Travis Coffman on K-57

Lawmakers question new JFK financing

Special Session Considers Governor's Bill To Jump Start JFK Construction

Senators Grill DPW, AG, Auditor Over JFK Procurement

Special session continues on JFK bill

Senators OK bill to fast-track JFK rebuild

Taitague Applauds Passage of JFK Bill

JFK finance bill passed