The backup for an agenda item dealing with the approval by the board of the Brownsville Independent School District for Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas to negotiate with a local contractor on a $4,045,000 construction project was missing only one thing – the actual dollar amounts of the nine qualified bids.
Instead, all the backup to the agenda item dealing with the board authorizing Zendejas to negotiate with Ziwa Corporation to build the Porter Early College High School Fine Arts Building contained was ranking criteria used by the district's evaluators.
Trustees were shown the dollar amounts provided by the Facilities Administrator Kenneth Lieck, Zendejas and CFO Lorenzo Sanchez when they were asked to approve the item, but the numbers were never released in the open meeting. In fact, the cash amounts of the bids were never released by the district. After questions arose over the firm selection, trustees voted to recess and go into executive session to discuss the issue. Upon emerging, Zendejas recommended the item be pulled for further study.
"The disparity was huge," said a board watcher. "Trustee (Philip) Cowen became unglued because they didn't get the hard numbers in the backup, but showed them to the board on the night of the meeting."
Included in the backup was a letter from McAllen-based NM Contracting president Noel Muñoz who withdrew from the bidding four days after the bids were opened by PBK Architects and BISD CFO Sanchez on January 18. Muñoz did not cite a reason for withdrawing his firm's bid.
The price category carried a maximum score of 60, construction experience 15, construction team and subcontractors 10, company's professionalism and subcontractors 10, construction performance 25, and financial strength 20 for a maximum possible score of 140.
As far as price category, "or best value," D. Wilson Construction scored the maximum 60, Wil-Con LLC followed with 59.66, E-Con Group scored 59.46 and Ziwa came in fourth with a 58.56.
Overall, Ziwa scored 133.96 of a possible 140, D.Wilson Construction 120.8, Wil-Con LLC 115.68, and E-Con Group 123.46.
Although Ziwa came in fourth in the price ranking, the final scores including the other five categories placed them over the others. Ziwa, for example, got a 14.8 of a possible 15 for company experience from the evaluators. The evaluators gave Ziwa, founded in 1996, a higher score than D. Wilson (13), which has been in business since 1957 and has offices in the Rio Grande Valley and in San Antonio and was named one of the top 100 construction companies in Texas.
That ranking alone placed it over D. Wilson, the lowest bidder.
The same applied to the other four categories aside from price. Ziwa nearly maxed on:
*construction team and subcontractors: 9.4 of a possible 10
*professionalism (?): 9.6 of a possible 10
*performance: 22.8 of a possible 25 and
*financial strength: 18.8 of a possible 20
In fact, BISD evaluators ranked Ziwa above the other lower-bidding firms on the five categories aside from the price categories, erasing its disadvantage on price. Among some of the criteria used by the evaluators in the categories were such subjective measures as quality of work, conflict resolution and performance, litigation history, subcontractors' reputation, and payment of bills, among others.
The financial strength category bears some scrutiny because Ziwa – which claims construction experience her and in Mexico – is said to be owned by Sergio Arguelles, the so-called Maquila King of northern Tamaulipas who has vast real estate holdings in Rancho Viejo.
During the meeting where the firm was chosen for the Porter project, board president Cesar Lopez disregarded the superintendent's recommendation that the item be pulled from the agenda and seconded trustee Joe Rodriguez' motion after trustee Philip Cowen withdrew his second after expressing "grave doubts" about the district's procurement process.
When Lopez pressed for the vote anyway, Cowen stormed from the board room and the vote was 3-1 in favor of Ziwa with both trustees joined by trustee Laura Perez-Reyes and trustee Minerva Peña voting against.
Cowen later apologized to Facilities Administrator Lieck for suggesting that bid rigging was taking place and threatening to call a press conference and going to the FBI.
Trustee Carlos Elizondo was absent from the meeting, and trustee Sylvia Atkinson left after closed session in the belief that the item would be pulled as recommended by Zendejas. With the three trustees not participating, three votes (a minority of the seven-member board) gave the superintendent – despite her recommendation that the item be pulled to get more information on the ranking – authority to negotiate the $4,045,000 contract with Ziwa.
"The district has to improve its procurement process," Cowen said later. "I agree that while we have to have the best value, we also have to have quality. It's the process that counts. We have to have transparency."
The BISD is allowed to have a 5 percent leeway in cost for projects for local vendors, but this was never mentioned by any of the trustees during the meeting. All Rodriguez and Lopez said was that they had full faith in Ziwa and that it was "a fine company."
(El Rrun-Rrun has made a public information request to the BISD to acquire the bid price for the nine qualifying firms, including NM Contracting, which rescinded its bid after bid opening.)