by Lauren Krupar
Reporter
Cuyahoga Falls -- City officials hope to use a reverse style of Internet auctioning to attract lower bids on city projects.
"There is a process in place that allows for reverse auction bidding," Law Director Virgil Arrington said. "The contractor throws out a dollar figure and then the next throws out a dollar figure. It's an exciting process to make sure that we are getting the best bid."
To begin using what Arrington described as a "reverse eBay," the city must first change the codified ordinances. City Council could vote on the proposed changes July 23 at 6:30 p.m. in the community room of the Natatorium, 2345 Fourth St.
In the city's current code, a contractor must provide specifications -- also called specs -- to the city in a bid packet that contains the contractor's price for the project. The city opens all bid packets at the same meeting and award the contract to the lowest and best bid.
The proposed online bidding process would be for all but the more complex projects, city officials said.
If Council approves the new process, all potential contractors would be notified that the project would be a reverse bid. Bidders would then submit bid packets containing all of the specs except the price to the city.
If the bid packets meet the city's requirements, the city would extend an invitation to the bidder to be online at a certain date and time to bid on the project. Potential contractors could then bid against each other with the lowest bid winning the contract.
While the city can set a time limit on the bidding, that limit can be extended when the city receives bids toward the end of the cycle.
City officials say an outside agency would oversee the online bidding process. The city also could reject all of the bids and use a regular bidding process if the reverse bids were not satisfactory.
"There's no downside to it whatsoever," Arrington said. "If it falls apart, we just reject the bids. We always reserve in all of our bid specs the right to reject all bids and start over."
The first test of this could be the Mudbrook Trail, parks and recreation officials said.
"This project is going to be the city's first try at this," said Ed Stewart, assistant parks and recreation department superintendent. "The hope is this will bring this [project cost] back to where it was while at the same time, it is a testing ground for the whole city."
The Mudbrook Trail is planned to be built near the former gun club and follow Mudbrook until Bath Road. E-mail: lkrupar@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-686-3915