Commission - Special Meeting

Everyone, thank you for joining us for this special commission meeting this afternoon. Special purpose, hopefully a short and relatively painless meeting, but thank you for all joining and spending part of your Friday afternoon with us. We're going to kick off with a call to order. We're going to have an invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Chaplain Bruce, come on up, sir. Flags are over here today. Sorry.

Let us all bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we thank you for another beautiful day. Thank you for bringing us together. Thank you for the grant us the clarity to make sound decisions, the humility to listen to each other, to make a grant and make us one as a community. It is in your name, Father, we pray. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Chaplain. All right. So for the main topic of today, over the course of this request for proposal process to solicit a new city attorney, we ended up hitting several unanticipated potholes that collectively made our current procurement process problematic. One of the three law firms withdrew from consideration, a second law firm identified a major pricing error after the fact, and the third law firm recently ran into some very significant federal court-related issues that negatively impacted its competitiveness. While everyone may not like the final decision the commission ultimately arrives at when selecting an individual RFP, the underlying review process should always be consistent, transparent, and fair. Our city staff and commission both pursued this particular RFP in good faith, but after talking extensively with the city manager, two separate attorneys, including our guest supporting attorney today, and two long-time contracting subject matter experts including our very own Mr. Ryan Scray, I now see that this RFP process is a bit too problematic for us to use. At this point, I believe it's in the city's best interest to formally rescind our new city attorney law firm selection vote and officially close out RFP 25.26-17 without a formal award. Once the RFP is officially closed out with no selection made, we will have two options moving forward. A, we can go through the entire months-long city procurement process and roll the dice a second time to see what we get, which I do not recommend. Or B, this commission can use its authority vested in it by Article 3, Section 27 of the city charter to directly appoint its own city attorney with a simple majority vote. It is important to note that the Florida law exempts municipal legal services from competitive solicitation requirements and option B also complies with our city's current procurement policy. Before we go any further, I would like to ask Ms. Kayla Platt-Rady of the Rumberg and Kirk Law Firm out of Tallahassee, who is assisting us today as an independent third-party attorney, call her the acting city attorney today, to share her thoughts. Ma'am.

Good afternoon, Mayor. Good afternoon, Commission. Thank you. Thank you to the audience. My name is Kayla Platt-Rady. I'm with the law firm Rumberger Kirk, and we've represented the city in various litigation matters, employment matters, property matters. I've reviewed this, and I'm going to go over a few things. If you guys have questions, I'm here for you all.

Ma'am, did you turn your microphone on?

Oh, it is on. Can you hear me better now? Okay, sorry. Let me just go over some of the law, some of the procedural things, and then if you have questions, I'm here. Section 120.57 says no submissions after a bid is open that amends or supplements shall be considered. So essentially what happened here is we had a couple of different things that were submitted after the bids were open, and under the law, under the section, those should not have been considered. They appear to be material changes. It wasn't just a small little moving of a decimal. It was significantly changing the amount in this case. There's several options that we can do now. How do we cure this? How do we fix this? We wanna make sure we're acting in good faith. We wanna make sure we're not acting unlawfully, arbitrary, capriciously, right? So what I recommend is one of three things. We make a motion to resend the vote that was made last week to accept that law firm. And then where do we go from there? We can either make a motion to look at the next most qualified bidder. We can make a motion to do another RFP or we can make a motion to do what the mayor has proposed here and using the authority of the city commission vote to determine whatever law firm you want. And you do have that authority, specifically section 2.87.057 subsection 3E4, Yeah, Florida statutes provide several things that are exempt from going out to bid. And one of those is us, hiring legal services, hiring attorneys. And it makes sense if you think about it from a common sense standpoint. There's certain things like medical, legal services, and the statute identifies those. You don't have to go out to bid for. And that might be an option that you want to consider today. Does anyone, and your RFP also provides for that. If you look in the language of the RFP for these legal services, you as the Commission reserve the right to reject all parts or discontinue the RFP altogether with a reason or without a reason before a contract has been entered. Good afternoon, Commissioner. So we are in a good position here. I'm going to open up the table. Does any Commissioner have a follow-up question, comment, concern?

So the main thing here that we need to look at is it looks like no matter what, based on the two options that the mayor gave, it's going to have to be rescinded, right?

I would recommend that we rescind it, yes. The city commission has discretion, a lot of discretion in who they choose. We want to make sure it's in good faith. We want to make sure that it's not any sort of question about that process. So the end result may be the same, but yes.

Was the biggest issue the fact that it was the flat rate after the flat rate was offered after the original?

I see two issues here. One was, yes, what you said, that's an additional term that was changing that kind of affects the competitiveness nature of the process. It gives possibly an unfair advantage That is one of them. And the other one was this, what I think people are calling a clerical error. Because that was a material change from $750 to $7,500, that's a material change that also kind of hinders the competitive idea, the fair idea of the bidding process.

Okay.

Ms. Judy, Mr. Warrick, got any questions for Ms. Kayla?

so mayor you said we uh can't remember your exact words but we hit some bumps in the road in the procurement policy this is our fault okay i i stated this at the last meeting that this was not a minor um minor irregularity and it wasn't just me it was our procurement manager he sent an email to mr lightfoot stating that It was not a clerical error. Did you all get that email?

Yeah, but I was more concerned about, like we discussed in that meeting, to me the issue was not that because it didn't seem, it wasn't that, like anyone can mess up a zero and there's an argument for that. The issue today for me is that the flat rate coming after the questions were asked i wish someone would have in that meeting that would have been the focus on why that was an issue not so much the 750 to 7 7 500 because in my mind that's a pretty easy mistake to make i mean missing a zero but the flat rate issue is the one that i wanted to focus on because i wish in that meeting someone would have stepped up on either staff or attorney and be like, hey, this is also something we need to stop considering.

a secondary issue. So Jamie, I will totally give you props here for saying you were right. And I missed, I was so focused on arguing with you over the apple price versus the orange, right? The orange being the fixed rate price. You and I were sparring and arguing professionally, but arguing or disagreeing on the apple price, which was the $7,500 and the hourly rate, right? We were so focused on that. I didn't even understand there was an issue with the orange until after the fact. I had a long, in-depth conversation with Mr. Scray. I also spoke to two attorneys and the city manager, and they said, well, the orange option has this issue, too. That was never discussed. I never even realized that was an issue. Now I do. Now I understand what you're saying. But you and I were locked horns on the apple. We never discussed the orange.

Right, and that's why I didn't even look at the orange because it's not even a viable option.

It wasn't. You're correct. And I am not a contract procurement specialist. Neither am I. Never even stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, so I can't claim that credit either. But what I can say is I've talked to some folks, two procurement folks in the last 48 hours that are very smart on this and have done this for decades. And they explained to me, well, You might be able to argue a comma or a small change to the original submission, but when you add a second option like that, that's very problematic. So we have two options going forward. We still have the clear option. We had three law firms. Two of them were not local. The two non-local law firms, one pulled out on their own. The other one is under significant federal legal issues that makes them much less competitive than they would have otherwise. So we're really down to the local firm that gave us the best price offer, even though it was late. So what we can do is we literally formally close out this RFP with no selection, and then we can directly appoint the same firm that we selected Tuesday night, Dunlap Shipment, for the same $275 price as the direct appointment with the only local firm going, and we can proceed forward. It cleans up the material. Mr. Scray and I talked about this extensively. He said, yes, this will clear it up. It makes your process clean. Y'all have the legal authority to do so with the city charter, with the state statutes, as well as our own city procurement policy. So I see this being a records-keeping, administrative, making it right, versus proceeding on trying to ride down the road on a flat tire. We stop, we change the tire, and we press forward.

All right, so first step is we need to rescind our vote from Tuesday, right? So I make a motion to rescind the vote we did on Tuesday, and then we can go to the next step.

So your motion is recognized. And just for the reference of the other three commissioners, what this would be if we move forward with this, we would first need to vote on Commissioner Warwick's motion to rescind RFP 25.26-17 without a formal award. Then we can immediately make a second motion to legally and directly appoint Dunlap Shipman as our new city attorney law firm at a rate of 275. Well, we'll discuss that afterwards.

Let's do the motion first.

Well, no, no. It's important to understand, if we go down this route now, The other option is we can go through the prolonged months-long procurement policy, right? We can go through that whole thing again. But as the attorney just told us, as Mr. Scray explained to me, we never even needed to do that. We didn't have to do it the first time. We don't have to do it now. We have a local attorney option that four of the five of us selected Tuesday night, we can still proceed forward with them very cleanly, very legally sufficiently, and move forward. If you commissioners want to do the months-long process again, we can, but we do not have to.

I just want to make a clarification. Commissioner Work, was your motion to rescind the vote from last week? That's what I would recommend first, that motion be made.

Yes, that's my motion.

So this would basically be a Florida two-step, I guess.

Yeah, it could potentially be a three-stepper, depending on how y'all do this, but I would recommend... doing a motion to resend the vote from last week, if there's a second and that gets passed, then you can have discussions on whether you want to end the bid process and how you want to proceed from there.

But there's a direct sequence of events here, right? But the first thing would be to resend our vote from Tuesday night and close out this particular RFP without a formal award. Then all the options are on the table and we can still press forward. Is that clear enough? Any questions? All right. So we have a motion from Commissioner Wart to rescind RFP 25.26-17 without a formal award. May I have a second?

Second.

I have a motion and a second. This really isn't something to formally Discuss per se.

You have to open it up to, you've got a motion and a second. You've got to open it to the public.

Well, no, I'm saying, is there any other discussion amongst the commission before we move forward with this?

Mayor, I would like to hear from the procurement person we have here.

Before I open it up to the floor, I wanted to make sure there was no question among the dais. Is there any other questions among the commission before we open up the floor?

No, just want to reiterate and confirm this vote is simply just to rescind the vote and that's it?

Yes. This first step has to happen before anything else can happen.

Right.

But we have two options after that. No questions? I'm going to open it up to the floor. Any questions or comments from the audience?

Mayor, before we do that, would you like Mr. Bracey to come up for any questions?

I would like to hear from him. Sure. And how he feels about it.

Is Mr. Bracey here?

Yes, sir.

Oh, you're behind Kiki. I couldn't see you. I'm sorry.

Come on up.

Happy Friday. How y'all doing? No, I don't really have anything to add. As I stated in the email to City Manager Lightfoot on the 7th, my two recommendations are to either cancel and re-solicit or utilize the statute of authority to directly appoint an attorney. So I don't have anything else to add. Thank you. Did you have a question?

Nope. I just wanted to hear from you. Thank you. Sure.

Thank you, Corey. The other Corey in the room. Come on up, Mr. Langford.

Mine is spelled with an E. When y'all went through the city manager hiring process, okay, there was a motion that was made to hire the city manager on the spot. And I had to unscrew myself from the ceiling when that happened. And I got up here and I talked about the process. Stick to the process. We have a process in place to do exactly what you all were trying to do, all right? I find out about this email that went out from the procurement manager advising against what happened on Tuesday. Why this wasn't discussed, why the procurement manager was not brought up here, and what just happened didn't happen on Tuesday boggles my mind. I will never understand it. So I'm not going to get into what I think should happen as far as... the effectiveness of our elected officials in this city. But I'm here to ask every one of you, not you, ma'am, you are not involved in this circus. We got to clean this up. And that's everybody, elected officials and non-elected officials. This is like kangaroo court. There's a three-step process. I'm going to have nine minutes. I'm But we're going to have to figure this out. If we've got a procurement manager, the guy that is, he was hired to oversee this process that says, hey, don't do this. And then we do it. What in the world? It just, that's why it boggles my mind. You know, I don't understand why he was not asked to come up here on Tuesday and Why the email wasn't included in the agenda packet, I mean, I've got very limited visibility as a citizen on what y'all have to see and hear. I don't have access to y'all's email. All I've got access to is that agenda packet that was 320-something pages long before Tuesday night's meeting. And even if the email would have been in there, I might have missed it. But if that email would have hit my inbox, I would have seen it. And that would have been an initial red flag, like, what are we doing here? Okay? So that's all I'm asking you all to do. We're paying y'all. Follow the dadgum process. That's all I'm asking for. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

I got something to say about that. Just for the record, the email was about the $750 to the $7,500, right? In that meeting, we set that aside. Me and the mayor both talked about, okay, we're not even dealing with that. We're talking about the flat rate. Email was not about the flat rate. So what I'm saying is I wish someone would have said in the meeting, hey, you can't do that either because we're not professionals at this. We very rarely ever... have to deal with this the only time we've ever had to put in a score and do something is when we hired the city manager out of everything we voted on the entire time i've been here this is only the second time i've had to do it so i yeah mistakes were made i'll own it but also wanted to add some context to it

And I'll agree with that. The email we got from the procurement only focused on the material price change. It did not talk about the all-in price could not be addressed.

So I will add that we did discuss that in the 101s that the all-in price that they included later could not be included.

And I don't understand why that would be a hard conclusion to come to, because if you knew the $7,500 wasn't good because it's after the fact, then why would the $275,000 be good if it was after the fact? That doesn't pass the common sense test to me.

You know what? This whole process was flawed. And to be fair, Jamie... If it was that messed up, we should not have been voting on it Tuesday night. And you're right, Corey Langford. Corey Bracey should have been here to discuss that.

Mr. Bracey was here. No one asked. You all had the email that was sent. And it was in the email where Mr. Bracey recommended it's up to the commission to decide is that a clerical error or not.

You know, it is what it is. We have a one deep contracting person. I did not realize, and I still can't see him now behind Kiki. It doesn't even matter where you were sitting the other night. I don't even remember seeing you here. If you were here, I trust you were, and thank you for being here. But I never saw you and never thought further about it. Again, and y'all saw this, for anybody that was here and had their hearing aids turned on or could hear naturally, jamie and i sport about the apple we repeatedly went over the seventy five are seventy five hundred verses the seven hundred fifty the flat rate was never even discuss as a well this is problematic to it was the better options like what we're not even considering the mood option let's go with the other one that we have that's where the disconnect happened for me and commissioner people said the same thing it is what it is After I took the time to speak to not one, but two procurement specialists, including Mr. Scray, two attorneys, including Ms. Kayla right here, and the city manager, who explained, no, not only is the apple problematic, the orange solution or the orange metaphor is too, and here's why, I went, oh. So what did I do? For the first time in six months, I used the authority in me per the city charter, and I called the special meeting for us to address this, right? Once you've stepped in gum, bubble gum, on the side of the sidewalk, all you can do is stop, peel it off your shoe, address it, try to make sure you don't do that again, and move forward, right? None of us are perfect. The only person that I know that's ever been perfect and walked this earth was killed as a fairly young man. So the rest of us, we have our flaws, we make mistakes. We're here. We just want to fix this. We want to make it right. And we want to move on. All right? Mr. Langford, your point is very well taken. Ma'am, you wanted to speak. Come on up. No, come on up. Welcome. Welcome.

with Dunlap and Shipman. Obviously, I was the attorney here the other night. Yes, ma'am. And we appreciate, and of course, we want the city to do the process and to follow all legal procedures. I'm not an expert in the city of Lynn Haven's procurement code. We were operating under this understanding that because you guys reached out to us, and I assume the other bidders with the follow-up questions, that our answers to those follow-up questions, which is where we provided that flat rate, could be considered as part of our bid. Otherwise, why ask if you can't consider that? So we were also acting in good faith, and I would have to delve into the code and the legal matters to understand further, but that was our understanding is because you guys asked us, we responded that that could be considered. Otherwise, why ask? So just wanted to bring that up.

Thank you, ma'am. I made the same assumption. When the info came from Corey, I assumed we could use it, right? Right. And I didn't realize both pieces were problematic, the apple and the orange.

Nor did we. So we do understand we want you guys to do the right thing. Thank you.

Right. Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Mayor, I'd like to clarify that in the RFI that Mr. Bracey sent out to All Submittals, an annual fee was not requested.

Okay. So, no other comments. We have a motion and a second. City Manager, will you call the vote?

Commissioner Ward? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernot? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. So, thank you for that, City Manager. So, Commissioner Wark's motion has passed to officially close out RFP 25.26-17 without a formal award. Now, that has been done. Now our options are we can appoint the one local attorney we have that offered us the best price before. or we can go back and roll the dice and go through the procurement process again, which Ms. Kayla has already said we're not required to do under any circumstances to require municipal legal services. I recommend We are making this clean, we're making this proper. We can still get to the same objective of hiring the same local law firm for the same fixed rate price, which is going to be 25 to $30,000 at least cheaper than what we've spent this year and move forward. We can do so cleanly and quickly. If y'all would rather go through the whole, I'm gonna call it a goat rope process, we can do so.

thoughts discussions ma'am go ahead Jimmy so here's my thoughts this is an extremely important decision for our city we need to get this right and I want a law firm that's going to be the best one to represent our city and when I scored these sheets I I gave Shipman pretty high high scores But I got to be honest with you. After going through this process, it would change. And I have concerns. And here's my concerns. One, you need a law firm that pays attention to detail. They missed a zero, not in just one spot, but two spots. And if it was just that, I could go with that. But that's one thing. The other thing is when they did turn in the bid package back saying we made a clerical error and they added the zero in there, the date of that bid stayed the same, which is correct. But when you make a change, you're supposed to initial it and date it. That didn't happen either. So that worries me. And I'm not a legal expert, but if I can figure that out, I would think a law firm would figure that out. And then the last thing I have is while we're sitting here talking about the apple and the orange, they're giving us legal advice which conflicts with what we're discussing today. So that concerns me. So that's my opinion on it. I had no problem selecting them. But after going through this, I have concerns now.

Mayor.

Yes, ma'am.

I make a motion that we accept the bid from Shipman. I want a local firm.

I do, too. And I think it's the right way to go. Not a bid.

I recommend we make a motion in a second and then open it up for discussion. Sure.

I have a motion. Can I have a second for Commissioner Tender's motion?

Who was the second?

I'm asking for a second right now. Commissioner Tender has motioned for us to go ahead and appoint Dunlap Shipman, the only local firm, as our new city attorney, as we intended to do Tuesday night.

Well, I guess I'll second just so that we can talk about it rather than just sitting here in suspense. So I'll just do that solely for the purpose of discussion so we can get the appetite of the commission.

Her motion did not say appoint. Her motion said accept their bid.

I think we should accept them as our firm.

Oh, you mean direct, correct. Just to clarify, Commissioner Tender, you said to directly appoint. That's what you meant, correct? Yes. That we directly appoint Dunlap Shipman as our new city attorney law firm.

Yes. I do not want to go through that whole procedure again where we get, well, we might get two or three, but, you know, go another 30 days and all this. We can nitpick this to death. And there's just no point. I'm sorry, but that's how I feel.

So just to clarify, Commissioner Peebles, are you good with the modified motion as seconding?

Yeah, just for discussion. Mayor, before we go on for Ms. Rushing's minutes, Commissioner Tender, could you repeat your motion?

I make a motion that we accept the Shipman Firm as our attorneys period directly appoint yes yes directly appoint them like we've already done once but okay any other questions or discussion among the commission is it a year-by-year contract

This is the intent was and what I will propose if Commissioner Tender, you're amenable to this. If we have to amend the motion, so be it. But the intent was a one-year appointment with an annual fixed rate. According to the RFP, if I remember correctly, we could actually remove them within 30 days if there was an issue at any time. either side can say, this isn't working out, it's not you, it's me, right? But the price would be fixed, the contract would be intended for one year at that fixed price of 275K a year.

When it came in, it's not for a year, is it? I thought it was until you decide you no longer want their service.

Yeah, there shouldn't be a term in there. It would be a letter of engagement the commission would accept at the next meeting to negotiate the terms. Okay.

Okay. Well, that's what we would do. But generally, that's how you do with any law firm. You bring them in. You have a honeymoon period. You basically test drive each other, organizationally speaking. And if everybody's good with that, you have the ability to extend.

Well, the reason I ask is because this is hard for me because I really see both sides of the argument. I see what Commissioner Wark is saying about, I mean, we've got to be real. There was mistakes made. So I don't, like, I wouldn't want to enter into a five-year contract after we just saw that. But I also see what Commissioner Tender is saying and what the mayor is saying is, like, you're basically rolling the dice. You don't even know if Shipman would re-bid. You don't know who would re-bid. And then they could come back and charge more money. I typically lean towards, like I said, the bird in hand. But at the same time, if you re-bid, it feels like even though we have the ability to direct higher, Doing the re-bid feels a little bit more like it's making a whole But this is a tough decision for me is what I'm getting at because I really struggle with it because there's pros and cons to both options to me. It's not clear cut. It's really not. To me, at least, it's not a straight up. So I really just want to see what the appetite of the commission is because I guess I'm kind of a swing vote here if I'm being honest because I see both sides.

This is the way I look at it is You know when you have a car that breaks down and you need that car, right? So you go to a dealership and you're in a rush and you're trying to get it, right? We're not in that position because if we don't hire a law firm, we still have a city attorney. It's not like we have to rush this. This is not something that has to be rushed. It has to be done right. And if we wanna do, if we wanna get the best law firm that we can, let's not rush the process.

I would argue. If I may, I just want to say something. So my understanding is I know we're open for discussion. Commissioner Tender's motion is to vote to approve Dunlap Shipman to be the law firm. If that motion were to pass, you could then make a motion to appoint the city manager or someone else to negotiate and work out the terms of a contract with Dunlap Shipman. that then would be presented to the commission and then you could vote on that and discuss that. If it's terms, if it's unclear whether it's that 275 annual fee, if it's a monthly fee, that could be negotiated with either the city manager and Dunlap Shipment and then presented to you guys. If there's a concern that way, of course, Commissioner Tender's motion may not pass at all, but that could be the process if that were to pass, if that helps with any of your concerns.

As far as the rush to hire, so I've been, as of the 20th, three days from now, I will have been the mayor six months. I had been the mayor three weeks when Amy Meyer submitted her resignation letter. So do basic math here. It's been five months in the making. This is not a rush to anything. And we got three bids. One of them was local. One is under serious federal court issues. And the third one withdrew voluntarily. So five months, and we're here. It's pretty clear-cut to me. I want to give Dunlap Shipman the benefit of the doubt. They're a very good first-string law firm, and I want to see what they've got. And by the way, one of the main people, Eric, that we met Tuesday night, he lives six blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue right here. He went to Bay High. His wife went to Mosley. They're both lifelong Lynn Haven, Panama City folks, except for law school or college era. Having local people who are lawyers, I think it would inherently be good versus having somebody fly in or drive in from hours away. The other two firms were actually from central Florida, primarily where they were based. This just makes sense to me. I think it's clean. I think it's direct. I'd say we go ahead and do Dunlap shipment, negotiate 275 like we did Tuesday night. Any finer issues we need to resolve, we resolve them. We could have the city manager negotiate that, or we could appoint someone else to do that. Jennifer, he's actually going on vacation, so it would probably be Jennifer, the assistant city manager, But we can do that or we can have a commissioner do it. And we press from there. That's my thoughts.

Mayor? I would also like to say, and this is nothing personal against Amy or anybody that we've had as an attorney, but there are a few things that really stick in my craw. And one is that Amy is the person, and Jamie knows this, Amy's the person that told our past city manager, Vicki Gaynor, that she could hang around for hours instead of being escorted out of the building. Jamie, I called him. I said, she's still there. He came up here and interrupted prayer, I guess, is what you said. And I don't mean that against her personally, but I'm just saying it's not like we're trying to get rid of somebody that's been top notch. And that's just one little thing. Anyway, I'm not going to get into all that. I'm just saying that they've made plenty of mistakes as well. And like you said, nobody is perfect. And I think it's time to move on.

I'll say this. Obviously, you know, I'm not a proponent of keeping our current law firm. But since we've had Rob Jackson, I feel a lot more comfortable with him. But I don't know how long he's going to be there for and, you know, who's his backup, right? So I feel comfortable with him for now until we do select a law firm.

I do also like Rob Jackson. He's a 18-year or 17-year military veteran, Navy pilot actually. However, he made it very clear he was a temporary solution. He spends about half his year in Colorado and will not be able to support us through big chunks of the summer and fall because he'll be on the other side of the country. So that's another reason. I do not think prolonging this whole procurement process much further is advantageous to us. Because the one attorney on the current contract that we are all like and are comfortable with will not be available to support us. So I'll leave it at that. Commissioner Perna, you got any thoughts or inputs here, sir? Okay. Commissioner Peebles, anything else?

My main thing is, I mean, I feel like we kind of need to be unified in this decision, but it doesn't appear that's going to be the case. I was hoping it'd be a 5-0 vote on one way or the other. I think it's important to show I don't know, unity. But that being said, if we do the direct hire, if that appears to be the appetite, I'd really want to focus on doing a one-year contract.

That's fair. Any law firm.

Yeah.

All right.

I like what the attorney has suggested. We take the vote, we make it, and then we get together and have them you know, come up with a contract for us to vote on. That makes the most sense.

Yes, ma'am. Well, if there's no other discussion among the commission, I'm going to open the floor. I see Mr. Finch has his hands up. Come on up, sir. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.

James Finch, 410 East 2nd Street. I was in your last commission meeting, and it was four to one vote on this. Now, it don't seem like any of you really want to vote on it. And I think y'all owe everybody a vote. Y'all hired these people last week. Everybody left. Then y'all said y'all want to redo it. So you owe these people a vote. Somebody don't want to kind of second something. They don't want whatever. Jamie was against it last week. He lost 4-1. He left, went home mad. He come back mad. But he was 4-1. But y'all need to do it 3-0, 5-0. Run them off, not hire them. But y'all need to do something because y'all look pretty damn bad up here not making a decision. In my lawsuit, I settled three months ago. I got it yesterday or the day before yesterday is when I got it. Same law firm. You know what I'm talking about? It's three months, and it changed. You know when it changed? I was on the way up here, and y'all canceled a meeting, took item number seven off 10 minutes before I come in here. Then it was another two weeks, another $15,000 worth of lawyers for me. But just do something. Don't hire anybody. Go out, but do something. Y'all owe these people a vote.

Yes, sir.

You know, I mean, if you've got to pass the gavel and second it, if they don't want to second it, you can second it. But you owe these people a vote.

Yes, sir. Mr. Beshear, come on up.

A couple of things. At the last meeting I was under the impression that maybe when I reviewed the submittals that I just missed seeing this lump sum in there. I didn't realize it was not in there at that point. I just assumed I missed it. What y'all are dealing with, y'all just settled a bid rigging lawsuit. These things were sent in, sent to each of y'all, sent to Chris and whoever, and then the bid was changed and now the low bidder is somebody that didn't even submit that bid to start with. You've got a tainted process that came in. I'm not saying that anything was done wrong but the appearance is and the opportunity was there for it to go very wrong and that's why the procedures are in place. I think y'all need to go back out for bids and do it fairly. I don't know why the other firm pulled out. It would be nice if that had been discussed that maybe you got some feedback from them that said well we just can't do it or or whatever, or maybe you're in too many lawsuits and we don't want to do that, but the fact is you've got a tainted process here and you're going to accept the results of that tainted process if you reappoint them without going back out for another bid process. And I know you don't have to, you can appoint whoever you want to, but you've got a tainted process that you're working from right now and unless you solve that, Going forward, it's going to carry that tank with it. But I agree with Mr. Finch. You need to make some kind of decision. If you're going to go back out, go back out. That's what needs to happen, in my opinion. And personally, I think you need to solicit some bids from people that specialize in municipal government law issues. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bushehr. I will say once again, I know Commissioner Bushehr Herna was not here yet, and when I said my opening statements, our city staff and our commission both pursued this RFP in good faith. Nobody was monkeying the process. Nobody was trying to throw grenades in it. Literally, the procurement person asked clarifying questions to the law firms, two of the three. And they came back, and now the material price change, absolutely get. But it wasn't like we were throwing grenades or now I want a hot tub, now I want this, now I want that, right? Procedurally, it happened. And this has been a cumbersome process. I've been frustrated with it. But there was no malintent here. This was a good faith effort to go through the procurement process that ironically we didn't have to do at all to hire a new city attorney. So your point is very valid, Mr. Beshear, and I appreciate it. I'm just saying it's a very frustrating thing.

It's very frustrating. When the follow-up questions were sent out to the bidders or to the people that put the proposals in, did each of them get the same questions? Yes, sir. Were all of them, every question sent to every one?

Yes, sir. And clarification, all three firms responded, not two or three. All three firms responded to the same questions.

Okay. And we don't know why those dropped out. They never gave us a reason. They just said.

So in those follow-up questions, was one of the questions, are you willing to submit a lump sum price?

No, sir. Okay.

That answers one of my questions. So it came out of nowhere. It wasn't because of the follow-up questions. It just showed up.

So there's still impropriety, it looks like.

To the extent there was impropriety, I believe the commission fixed the procedural defect with their first motion that was passed today.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Langford.

Told you I was going to get my time's worth. Three things. Number one, I want to respond to what your statement was. I don't care if the procurement manager told me that y'all shouldn't proceed because they own a pink elephant. All right? I don't care what the reason is. If the procurement manager tells me that you should not proceed with this, then I'm asking questions. That's my response to your statement. The second thing, the process, whether we put this thing out for another RFP or whether y'all hired directly, my question would be why did we do an RFP to begin with? Why didn't we hire directly to begin with, okay? I understand what Mr. Bork's talking about. We've got a law firm. We've got legal representation. I'm not advocating one way or the other, okay? But I think you guys need to be 100% able to clearly articulate to us as to why you're going and justify why you're going with which process. Whether you go with another RFP or whether you hire directly, you'll be able to 100% justify the reasoning behind that. All right? The third thing I want to talk about is the law firm that's sitting back here, Dunlap and Shipman. Tuesday night, I didn't know them from Adam's house cat. All I saw was what they had submitted in their package, their qualifications, what they specialized in, et cetera. I have no reason to believe these people are not very good at what they do. Okay? But I, too, saw what happened on Tuesday night. I'm not saying that they provided the best legal advice. I asked Ms. Courtney just before this meeting, I said, hey, what was your understanding of this $275,000? She explained to me, just like she explained to you all, that she thought that once that answer came in, that that was part of the bid now. Here's where I'm going with this. Whoever y'all hire... I'm going to put them on notice, just like all of you all have been put on notice, because if we hire you all, whether it's through an election process, whether it's through a hiring process, or whether it's through another hiring process, we expect you all to do your jobs, okay? That's what we're paying you all for. If I don't do my job, airplanes hit. People die. I'm not saying it's to that level, okay? But when I say when it's time to do our job, then let's do our freaking job. That's all I'm saying here. Justify whichever way you're going to go with it. It don't matter to me one way or the other. I'm sure they're a great law firm, and there's a lot of grace that's required right now to both you all as well as the law firm that we're going to hire. And I'm willing to show some grace. There were some mistakes made, all right? I would feel a whole lot better about giving grace if no one had stood up on Tuesday and said, we got some issues here. But somebody did, and we proceeded anyway. All right, so that's why it's a little bit tougher for me to swallow this pill. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Well, I'll only address the second piece of that, Mr. Langford. We've gone through this process for almost five months now. I have zero appetite to go through this process for another five months. We had three bidders, only one local, and the other two, the only one that isn't under a major legal scandal right now, withdrew with no explanation. It is what it is. We have a bird in the hand versus two in the bush. This is a very well-known, well-established law firm here in town. and frankly i like their package i want to use them consider them our jag you and i are both retired military this is a high speed low jet low drag jag officer option we yay or nay we can hire them direct appoint them which is legally allowable florida statute our own city procurement policy that's got all screwed up this time as well as our own city charter your city charter chairman you're well aware article three section twenty seven very clearly states city commission has the authority to appoint their own city attorney for legal services and advice so that's what i am pushing for us to do let's clear this up we've already done the material fix the process got screwed up no one threw a grenade in it but three of the four wheels fell off the damn car All right, we stop. We're not even trying to put spare tires on that car. We're just junking that car. We're walking over to use his used car analogy. We're walking over to the lot dealer and going, what other car you got? Process-wise to hire, and we move forward. Any other questions from the audience?

May I make a clarification?

Yes, ma'am.

If you were to decide that you wanted to go out and do the RFP process again, documents are ready. You can post it tomorrow. We could give them four weeks to respond. I believe during this process we gave them six weeks to respond. We could shorten the response time. You might get a different pool of applicants.

Well, just out of general curiosity, Kiki, since you said that, Amy Myers resigned three weeks after I took office. I'm about to hit my sixth anniversary month-wise. That's five months. I don't know what took so long for that process to play out, but it did.

So staff had to prepare an RFP to be advertised, then it had to be presented to the commission, you all had to approve it, and then it had to be advertised.

So any disagreement with the five-month timeline?

I don't have a personal recollection of when Amy resigned. I don't remember. I trust your judgment. I don't have a personal memory. What I'm telling you is the documents are ready to go. Everything's been written. Everything's been vetted. If you wanted it posted on the website on Monday, we could make that happen.

Thank you for that. So any other questions or any other comments between the commission before we vote? Hearing none, city manager, call the vote please. Commissioner Tender?

Yes. Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Pernod? Yes. Commissioner Ward? No. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. So 4-1. Same result, cleaner process. It's straightforward. we can press forward. Now, the next question, Ms. Kayla, as you mentioned, is would you recommend we appoint someone to do the negotiation with the newly appointed law firm?

Yes, whether that's the city manager, assistant city manager, I think that's the cleanest way, the easiest way, and then that person can present to the commission the contract.

So are city managers going on a well-deserved week-long vacation? If the commission is amenable, I'm fine with assistant city manager Jennifer Hodges taking point on that. I don't know, Chris, if you want to try to do this on vacation or if you're good with your deputy doing it.

We'll take care of it. It'll be, Ms. Hodges can discuss with them. We'll make it happen. My question for you is, would you like for Dunlap and Shipman to be on the dais for this, or would you like Hand, Arendelle to still represent the next meeting until a letter of engagement is approved?

I think the proper thing would be to have the previous, until the contract is done, you want to wait until the contract is done before the new person.

We are in agreement, but just wanted some direction from you all.

While we're all here in the sunshine, like I said earlier, I would prefer it to be one year at a time if we can. I don't know if we want to put it in the contract that we reevaluate every year or something like that. Because that's kind of one of the issues we had. Issue is the wrong word. One of the things that I wasn't here when the initial contract was done with the previous attorneys, but that's something I wish would have been in the contract is rather than it just being a continuing contract, that it's more of a we reevaluate every single year. Up for renewal. Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense.

I think we need to have a motion and a second first before we can have further discussion.

A motion and a second for an appointment. okay um can i get a motion to appoint jennifer hodges assistant city manager as our uh negotiator i guess i nominate commissioner peebles negotiate i have a motion for commissioner peebles and whoever if we do a commissioner obviously jennifer could work with them just fine but Any thoughts among the Commission?

Is there a second? Was there a second?

I'm not hearing one. I'll ask again. Do I have a second?

Just to be clear, you can have a second to open it for discussion. That doesn't necessarily mean you're approving the motion.

We had a motion. We didn't have a second.

I think it's a rough spot to put Sam in to make him in charge of the contract. But at the same time, we're going to vote on it anyway. And I like the idea of having it limited so that it just doesn't go on forever and ever.

Do we have a volunteer? Since the motion fails, do we have a volunteer among the commission who would like to take point and coordinate with Jennifer on the draft contract? At this point, it should be pretty darn straightforward. The parameters are already clear and in place.

I'll step up at once.

I don't know. It just makes more sense for an HR person to do an HR function.

You know what? I mean, you guys didn't have a problem when I negotiated with the city manager. There's a lot going on then.

You volunteered to do that.

No, no, no. You guys wanted me to do that. I didn't ask you to do it. You seconded it, though, and you had no problem with it then.

You know what, I have a PhD in human resources and 20 plus years experience in the space. I will be glad to step up if you all will have me coordinate with Jennifer and we will take care of this. Lickety split. I bet Jennifer and I can have this squared away in a couple of hours.

Okay, I'll motion for Mayor Lowry to be the point person for negotiating the contract.

And I second it.

Thank you, sir and ma'am. Any discussion further among the commission? Not, I'll open the floor. Mr. Finch, you had something, sir?

I'm a little confused. I thought you all hired Shipman a few minutes ago. We appointed.

We just got to do the contract now.

You understand, but you're going to have an HR person do that, talk to them, whatever. You know, your lawyer should tell you the difference between a bid and an RFP. RFP is a request for proposals. And most of them on a professional engineering hiring or something like that, you score them. You've never scored but one since you've been here, and you said twice was on the lawyer. But what they do is they score them, and then whoever wins the score, they rank them one, two, three of the firms. So the number one firm gets to go negotiate with y'all for a contract. He meets with every one of y'all, and then y'all settle with a contract, and with city manager, whatever, and then he comes back to commission, he gets his contract. But y'all keep confusing this with a bid. It was a proposal. A bid got requirements. If you're late, 2 o'clock, you're one minute late, you don't get it. If you don't acknowledge addendum, you get thrown out. There's all kind of stuff that goes to addendum that's totally different from a proposal. And so y'all hired this law firm today, is that true?

Yes, sir.

Okay, that's what I wanted to know.

Yes, sir. Come on up, Mr. Brashear.

Okay, y'all decided on Dunlap Shipman. Dunlap Shipman's here. Y'all are here. There was a proposal that they made before. I don't know if there's a reason that you can't ask them if they would honor that proposal and accept it today and not even wait to do another meeting. I don't know why we're waiting at this point. You made your decision. Y'all are all here. You know what the proposal was. If they will stand by that proposal for lump sum that you approved before, why not do it and be done with this process?

Agreed. But that's exactly what Ms. Hodges and I will be doing.

I don't know if she has the authority to make that decision because she's not the... She's not the head person.

We have to talk to the head law partner people. So, you know, it is what it is. But Ms. Hodges and I will gladly take care of that.

Come on up. You guys are doing the... I'm sorry. You and Jennifer are doing the contract, right?

We're literally going to make...

The negotiations as far as term limits and things like that. That makes sense to me.

Good afternoon, Commissioners and Mayor. My name is Josh James. I'm also with Dunlap and Ship and I live about a half mile down the road here in Lynn Haven. I'm coming up just to answer your question. We'll honor the terms that were submitted in the the request for proposal so that shouldn't be a question that we're going to turn around and try and increase the prices um that's we're not doing that um you know we're pleased that despite the hiccup uh that occurred that you guys are still going with us we certainly are going to um honor that flat rate that um was discussed so thank you for that

Clarification, Ms. Rady, but the price in the proposal was $750 a month with a $300 an hour rate. So I don't think we want to honor the price in the proposal if that's what we're going to negotiate.

Right. Thank you, Mr. Lightfoot. That is correct. The $275,000 that we previously offered and was discussed, we will honor.

The Orange Prize.

The Orange Prize. And we understand that you'd like to limit the time, and we recognize and respect that as well, and we would be amenable. Thank you.

I will say at the 275, there was no limit of time. It was an annual fee.

Yes. So Ms. Hodges and I will plan to engage with y'all Monday or Tuesday. The intent with you letting us know that y'all will honor, that is the parameters that we will go by. And we will go through that. We'll make sure everything is spelled out properly, just as it was. In fact, I'm sure we'll have Mr. Corey there in with us as well. We'll go through it and make sure everything's lined up just as it was. There should be no surprises. Everybody can sign off. We can bring it back to the commission for approval.

Yes, sir. We look forward to it. It should be an easy process.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments before we move on? Mr. Langford, come on up. I need to get some Price is Right music or something.

Get my other three minutes worth here. I understand what y'all are talking about, about the one-year stuff. It's not required.

It's not what?

It's not required. In the RFP, just like you had mentioned, if you're not happy with their services or they're not happy with us, each party gives each other 30 days and... Y'all say see you later. Y'all do another RFP and we go hire somebody else. When you do the one-year deal, what that does is that drives a reevaluation of their costs that they may potentially go up after that one year. So I don't know. I mean, they could go up after six months and present that to the commission. I'm just saying that, you know, when you drive a one-year contract, I know if I was on contract for one year, just prior to that one year, we're going to start looking at our prices here. We might go up, right? So why is there this requirement for one year when it's in the RFP that either party can give each other 30 days notice to exit the contract? I don't understand the one-year deal.

Past legal trauma. Probably the best way to say that, organizationally speaking.

Okay.

Indefinite contract, feeling like they were locked into a long-term situation.

And again, I'll just say that if there were some issues that were identified not long after they take over, we don't have to wait that first full year. We notify them, give them 30 days, and you're out. Do the whole RFP deal, right? So I don't understand why there's so much emphasis being placed on the one-year contract is all I'm saying. I don't think that's required.

Thank you. I agree with you, Mr. Langford. It's not required, but I'm not sure if you are a sports fan. I think you're a sports fan. I know that. It's a pretty common psychological thing. Whenever you're on a one-year contract, you tend to perform better. because you know that at the end of the year you're going to have to prove yourself all year. If you're locked into basically a continued contract, it's just human nature that you tend to get lax. I understand that you can cancel it at any time, but having that in the back of your mind that it's a one-year contract, psychologically you tend to perform better.

Always on parade is a military term.

And I get it, refer to my previous comments about doing your job. I expect you to perform every single day until you're asked not to. I don't care whether it's a year or 60 days from now.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, that's a fair point, but it's... You have to come to a consensus of five people to make that decision, or three out of five to make that decision. So, like, I can't just tell Chris to fire the attorney without getting two other people to do it. So I'd much rather have the one year that gets people to do their job.

You're still going to have to come to consensus three out of five after the one year. I understand that. So what's the difference in coming to a three out of five consensus that's after 12 months than it is after 45 days when you decide you don't want them serviced? You still got to get three people to agree. That's all I'm saying. The one-year deal don't make a whole lot of sense to me. That's all I'm saying.

We're good. Thank you, Mr. Langford. Any other questions or comments before we press forward? If not, City Manager, would you call the roll, please?

Commissioner Peebles? Yes. Commissioner Tender? Yes. Commissioner Pernot? Yes. Commissioner Wark? Yes. Mayor Lowry?

Yes. Thank y'all for that. All right. This has been an hour and six minute long meeting. It's actually a very quick one for us, but out of cycle and interesting to say the least. Thank y'all for your grace and your attention this afternoon. We'll call this meeting closed. Have a great weekend.