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<br />That is not the City's problem. He is going to side with a Ramsey business that just got a 32% <br />tax increase. As a City Council they need to be responsible to those businesses within their <br />territorial areas. There should be no concern in opening this up to a bidding process. There are <br />other players that may have the opportunity to give the same service, perhaps better, and perhaps <br />better rates. They do not know that until they open it up. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dehen stated complaints will happen. In his view, if the complaints are serious <br />enough you need to think about terminating the contract, and that is appropriate. If there are <br />minor infractions, those things happen. If someone screwed up yesterday he would not trust him <br />for a while, but if he shows in some capacity that he has changed he may deserve a second <br />chance. He is not saying this person does, but there may be other players. One issue that goes <br />beyond this is whether the City's service contracts should be debated, rather than just awarded; <br />he thinks they should be scrutinized more than just awarded. <br /> <br />Interim City Administrator Nelson advised by state law, the City is under no obligation to go out <br />for bid for professional services; they have the right to determine selection of a contractor based <br />upon the quality of the service they provide. That is specifically to help municipalities deal with <br />these types of issues, and by state law the City is not required to go out for RFP for these <br />services. Ms. Nelson stated at the time, the Chief was having issues with the towing. They were <br />not under contract, and in response to the issues the City went out for an RFP to get bids and has <br />been working with North Star Towing. They have had a good experience with North Star and <br />have not experienced the problems they did with Champlin Towing. This is an issue for the <br />officers on the street at 3:00 a.m. that need to rely on a reliable towing service. From a staff <br />perspective, it is Council's decision whether to go through the RFP process, but this is about <br />service being provided, and right now the Police Department is happy with the service being <br />provided by North Star Towing. <br /> <br />Councilmember Olson stated she was not on the Council when this came up before. When the <br />gentleman came in before the Council last week and said he thought he was being wronged <br />because he was not being awarded the contract, it seemed like there were some skeletons out <br />there. There was a room full of people and she did not want to get into this type of discussion <br />and damage his business in any way. That was why she wanted to see this moved to a <br />worksession. However, he really did not talk a lot about what was good about his business, all <br />he was doing was throwing arrows at North Star Towing. The City has been pleased with the <br />service from North Star Towing during the contract, and this is a contract the County could <br />supersede them on at some' point. If it is not required that they go out for bid she thinks they <br />should award the contract. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dehen stated he has a different recollection of what the gentleman asked for; he <br />thought he felt wronged because he was not allowed to bid on the contract, not because he was <br />not awarded the contract. That is an important distinction. The better policy is simply to RFP <br />the service. <br /> <br />Councilmember Elvig commented if someone is going to dispute this and look at the contract <br />term again, and they are working with public funds, it makes sense to put out an RFP and go <br />through the process. This seems to be the only way to handle a dispute of this nature. He <br /> <br />City Council Work Session / May 8, 2007 <br />Page 3 of8 <br />