Back in December, City Council went out for bids on a project to modernize the systems
A contract has been awarded to upgrade the audio-visual systems at Morro Bay Veterans Memorial Building, also known as the Vets Hall, where the citys official meetings are held and broadcast on cable TV and the internet. The City Council, back in December, went out for bids on a project to modernize the Vets Hall’s AV systems, but not a lot of interest was generated.
The city “received one responsive and responsible proposal,” reads the staff report from the Council’s Feb. 11 meeting. Bill Gaines Audio, Inc., of San Luis Obispo, was that lone bidder and despite the lack of competitive bidding, the council decided to award the contract anyway.
But it wasn’t unanimous as Mayor Carla Wixom, and Councilmembers Bill Luffee and Cyndee Edwards voted for the contract and Councilmembers Jeff Eckles and Zara Landrum dissented.
The initial contract was for a maximum of $293,000 out of a budget of over $519,000 available.
However, BGA’s original bid was changed even before it went to the City Council for approval. In an addendum item to the agenda, Public Works Director Greg Kwolek informed the council that it had been able to renegotiate some of the bid and actually lower costs.
“After additional negotiations,” “Bill Gaines Audio agreed to reduce the Project Planning and Design and Approval line items in their cost proposal from $22,600 to $15,000,” Kwolek said. “This would also reduce the agreement not-to-exceed amount by $7,600.”
So, the contract’s new “not-to-exceed” amount was dropped to $285,000.
The city has been saving up money for this work for some time, and had accumulated some $291,000 out of general fund allocations plus another $227,000 from its PEG Access fund, which is paid by cable TV subscribers.
PEG stands for “Public, Educational, and Government,” the three areas of access under the cable TV franchise contacts.
PEG Access is the way the city was able to even start broadcasting its meetings live on Charter Cable TV (Ch. 20) back in the mid-1990s.
The city has consistently run its so-called “Brown Act” meetings on that channel ever since, and now the meetings are streamed as well on the internet (slo-span.org), under the production of AGP Video, which has had the contract for Morro Bay’s meetings since the beginning.
Under the contract, BGA will draft three “design options” that will come back to the City Council in April to choose a final one. From there, the company will get to work on buying necessary equipment and installation. They will also be required to train the staff on how to use it and provide tech support.
But readers shouldn’t think that because the AV job came in well under the available budget, this isn’t the only work that’s supposed to come out of that money.
“Beyond audio and visual upgrades, further building improvements such as heating system, security, and ADA improvements for the Vets Hall Building will also be funded from this project budget,” Kwolek’s report said.
