News Needed and Shared

Kristy Shadle, City of Burbank, is doing a bid for irrigation parts. Her existing vendor is out of the area, so the parts are shipped in. She also mentioned that one of her existing vendors for trucks seems to be experiencing difficulty in delivering vans in a timely fashion and was wondering if anyone else was experiencing difficulty with the same vendor.

Christine Roberto, City of Norwalk, mentioned that she does not use the same truck vendor as Kristy, but uses a vendor in Bellflower who is extending last years pricing to her and she piggybacks off another agreement.

Nancy Pickard, City of Fullerton, shared a recent bid that her city did for water meters.

Felice Fromm, City of Torrance, mentioned that Ford will no longer be making the Crown Victorias, a preferred vehicle with most police departments. She presently is able to piggyback onto a bid out of San Diego.

Felice also raised the question of the cost of a purchase order. Due to numerous factors, it seems that the cost, in most instances, lies between $75.00 and $150.00 Lastly there was a question of if an item is budgeted, does that item still need to go to council for award?

Carolyn McIntosh, City of Irvine, had questions about handheld PDA's for the police department and the ability to piggyback on to the Orange County Police agreement.

Cynthia Dupree, South Gate, seemed to have the most experience in this area and had valuable information as to her existing and past providers for this type of service.

Cynthia, besides having valuable information on the above mentioned PDA issue, mentioned that her city is setting up an employee fair for PDA's in conjunction with a health fair.

Tracy Hamilton, City of Irvine, needs to do an RFP for pest control and asked whom other cities were using. There was also discussion of various vendor discounts to employees of cities. Microsoft seems to offer employees discounts for internet service.

Marc Monforte, LAUSD, also brought up the idea of various vendors offering discounts to employees, an "Employee Courtesy Program." Due to budget constraints, they are asking their vendors if they would like to participate in the employee courtesy program, allowing them to offer the employees some additional benefits. The program is administered by the same department that administers health benefits to avoid a conflict of interest situation. In that same light, a vendor does not need to have a contract with LAUSD to participate in the "Employee Courtesy Program." Marc also shared two recent bids, one for flags and another for bottled water. Lastly, he continues to work on developing a program where the school district will be able to sell to other agencies. A questionnaire will be forthcoming.

NEXT MEETING IS OCTOBER 6TH IN LAKEWOOD. Marc will be sharing with us how the LBUSD evaluates their vendors. Should be very informative and useful.