County chooses same consulting firm

By ALBERTO TOMAS HALPERN

PRESIDIO COUNTY – County commissioners have selected S&B Infrastructure of McAllen, again, to be their construction and consulting firm for the international bridge expansion project between Presidio and Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico.

In late November, commissioners scored three firms, S&B Infrastructure, Structural Engineering Associates, and Raba-Kistner. In that meeting, after some confusion over the scores, S&B Infrastructure was selected. The two losing firms objected to the decision to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT), which has to sign off on the agreement. TxDoT asked county officials to set guidelines in selecting a firm and rescore the three original firms again. Commissioners had the option to go over TxDoT’s head and appeal to a federal authority, but in good faith acted on TxDoT’s wishes.

Commissioners agreed last week to use a truncated average scoring method in which the highest and lowest scores for the firms from individual commissioners would be thrown out and calculating a mean for each firm would be used to determine the apparent most qualified firm. As part of TxDoT’s instructions to commissioners, the county officials were told that a fair scoring process requires their decision to be made solely on the basis of the firms’ proposals and presentations from late November, not external factors.

Commissioner Carlos Armendariz, who has mostly been in opposition to rescoring the firms, turned in his score sheets to County Judge Paul Hunt and left the meeting for other business.

“Good luck, let me know who won it,” Armendariz said to Hunt as he made his exit.

Before announcing the scores, Hunt admitted, “This whole redo is unwarranted.”

After tossing out the highest and lowest scores for each firm, Hunt looked at the commissioners and told them, “I have calculated what I believe is the truncated mean.”

The resulting mean for S&B Infrastructure was a score of 94 out of a possible 100. Structural Engineering and Associates received a score of 77.3, and Raba-Kistner’s score was 76.7.

“According to this, the highest mean was for S&B Infrastructure, they are the apparent most qualified firm,” Hunt said. Looking at commissioners the judge asked, “What’s the play here?”

Without hesitation, Commissioner Frank ‘Buddy’ Knight quickly made a motion to accept the results and name S&B infrastructure the apparent most qualified firm. Commissioner Eloy Aranda immediately seconded the motion. Perhaps out of the excitement of getting past this action yet again, which has dragged on for months, Hunt moved to adjourn the meeting before commissioners actually took a vote on Knight’s motion. After a few chuckles commissioners voted unanimously to accept the motion.

The result will be communicated to TxDoT for their approval.

In other county business, commissioners:

Discussed at length with County Treasurer Mary Williams, discrepancies over county bills. Commissioners Aranda and Knight questioned expenses in their precinct accounts, as well as Hunt who wasn’t sure who authorized payments for his account. “We should not be authorizing payments on anything that doesn’t have a PO (purchase order), Hunt said.

“Nobody knows what the hell is going on,” Commissioner Felipe Cordero said.

Listened to a report on the status of the newly opened county jail. As of Tuesday, February 14, there were 85 federal inmates and two county inmates at the jail. Commissioner Knight said he wanted to see more regular reports on the jail to track inmate numbers and how that totals in dollars to the county. Sheriff Danny Dominguez told commissioners he would give them reports on a regular basis.

Discussed adopting guidelines and criteria for possible future tax abatements. Hunt wanted to adopt such criteria using Travis County’s guidelines as a map to go off of. This has stemmed from a possible solar panel project that Hunt has been pursuing for the county to be located near Presidio. Commissioners will study the Travis County guidelines and will discuss and possibly take action at a future meeting.

Listened to a report from Jesse Lea Schneider about past and upcoming events with the County AgriLife Extention Service. Schneider reported that there will be a natural resource, horticultural and rainwater clinics coming up. She congratulated 4-H members on competing in stock shows outside of the county. “They did fantastic,” Schneider said. She also reported that 4-H will be teaming up with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts on upcoming projects, saying all the groups have common goals.

Created a committee made up of Hunt, Knight, and County Attorney John Fowlkes to investigate updating a lease on the Marfa golf course with the city of Marfa or possibly go in a new direction with the golf course.