FORT PIERCE \u2013 The City of Fort Pierce has thrown out the final two bids for the lease to operate Little Jim\u2019s Bait and Tackle, just days after a city evaluation committee gave its highest rating to a Michigan firm over the bar\/restaurant\u2019s existing operator.<\/p>\n
The announcement was posted on the city\u2019s website Wednesday, saying that current operator, Salty 3 Baitshack LLC, will continue running Little Jim\u2019s on a month-to-month basis for an unspecified period of time while the city \u201cworks through the process of preparing a re-solicitation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drita Jucaj, a partner in the highest-ranked firm, said that the city ruling both of the evaluated finalists as \u201cnonresponsive\u201d after the committee made its recommendation \u201creeks of shadiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not sure how to handle this, but we\u2019re really upset,\u201d Jucaj said Wednesday night. \u201cWe put a lot of time, money and effort into the proposal to just have it tossed. We deal with leasing buildings and we operate restaurants. To win and be tossed out, we don\u2019t know what to think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jucaj\u2019s firm, Luigi Lucaj, of Milford, MI, was ranked the highest of two proposals September 23 by a committee of city employees that rated their food service industry experience, site plan design and capability to perform.<\/p>\n
Lucaj\u2019s proposal was given 228 points, while the proposal from current operator, Salty 3 Baitshack, was awarded 218.5.<\/p>\n
Jucaj said she learned of the evaluation results after reading an October 10 Hometown News story and immediately called Gelencia Carter, city purchasing manager. According to Jucaj, no one responded to her phone inquiry and she had no communication from the City of Fort Pierce until Tuesday when she received a letter from Carter.<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon further review and following the scoring meeting, city staff concluded that it was not feasible to evaluate the proposals as meeting the requirements, as they did not fully satisfy the mandatory solicitation criteria,\u201d Carter said in her October 14 letter to the Lucajs. \u201cIt became apparent only after the proposals were distributed to the evaluation committee that these qualifications were not completely met. Consequently, all submitted proposals, both before and after scoring, are considered non-responsive.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, a recording of the September 23 evaluation meeting, which Carter attended, showed one of three proposals on the agenda was deemed \u201cnon-responsive\u201d then, apparently for failure to provide sufficient information in its plan.<\/p>\n
But the two remaining proposals were scrutinized and scored.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted Wednesday on the city\u2019s website, the city said \u201c the submissions lacked key qualifications\u201d and \u201ccould not be properly evaluated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outcome underscores the city\u2019s commitment to maintaining a fair and transparent procurement process that adheres to the standards established in its solicitations,\u201d the statement continues. \u201cWhile the city works through the process of preparing a re-solicitation, the current vendor will continue to operate Little Jim\u2019s under a month-to-month agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Little Jim\u2019s bid solicitation has been fraught with hurdles.<\/p>\n
Originally five firms responded, but two were initially eliminated when they claimed they were unable to get timely answers about everything from the property\u2019s zoning and boundaries, to questions on alleged environmental violations and proposed water taxi operations.<\/p>\n
Those firms have retained an attorney to challenge the city\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n
Lucaj said Wednesday she was aware of that controversy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw asking too many questions would get us bumped.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s bidding process has been under a microscope since former City Manager Nicholas Mimms was charged last year with bid tampering and official misconduct in the awarding of a bid to a non-profit headed by two city employees for vacant Avenue D land. One of those employees, Vennis Gilmore, city planner, was demoted by the city and reprimanded and fined by the state\u2019s s ethics commission for his role.<\/p>\n
Most of the $500,000 in grants to fund that community development plan remain unaccounted for and the land is still vacant.<\/p>\n
Lucaj estimated she and her husband Luigi spent $14,000 just in travel to Fort Pierce and preliminary architect fees to draft their proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t even know what this means. There\u2019s clearly bias. We just want some answers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 The City of Fort Pierce has thrown out the final two bids for the lease…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":{"0":"post-6601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","11":"tag-st_lucie"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}