The editor of this blog was a member of the citizens committee that recommended Marc Mazzuca to Mayor Dave Schmidt from among four candidates who sought appointment to fill the seat of  Tom Bernick, who resigned after one year on the job as 6th Ward alderman.

Mazzuca has earned mixed reviews from us since he took his seat at The Horseshoe in June 2012.

We sung his praises in posts such as those dated 06.23.12, 08.23.12, 12.16.13 and 09.26.13, but we criticized his performance in posts dated 07.18.12, 10.26.12, 05.08.13 and 08.28.13.  And when Mazzuca ran for that 6th Ward seat in 2013, we made no endorsement in his race for reasons explained in our 04.08.13 post.

While Mazzuca has the ability to exasperate, even when he is exasperating he does something that the City Council needs: he provides hard-data analysis.

Recently he did some necessary nitpicking about City staff’s cavalier treatment of the competitive bidding process.  Although that earned him some sneers and grimaces from City staffers it should earn him applause and gratitude from the City’s taxpayers.

The City Code provides for competitive bidding for any contract or transaction in excess of $20,000, unless it involves professional services where competence and quality are more difficult to ascertain and distinguish among service providers.  The main purpose of competitive bidding is to obtain the lowest possible prices for the taxpayers.

But competitive bidding has another purpose: to eliminate, or at least minimize, the potential for graft and corruption to which public contracts funded by the taxpayers – a/k/a, Other People’s Money (“OPM”) – are particularly susceptible.  Over the years, public officials here in Illinois have become so adept at fleecing the taxpayers that even competitive bidding has been rigged and manipulated to provide sweetheart contracts for insiders.

Nevertheless, competitive bidding remains the best weapon against both waste and profiteering.

So it’s a comfort to us any time the mayor or any alderman insists on compliance with such bidding requirements.  And it’s a concern to us any time competitive bidding is criticized, evaded or ignored by City staff – which is one reason why we have written often in favor of competitive bidding and critically of public officials when competitive bidding is scorned – as in our posts of 05.13.09, 06.10.09, 12.20.10, 02.18.13, 03.04.13, 06.06.13, 09.23.13, 10.14.13 and 10.16.13.

Mazzuca provided his share of comfort at last Monday night’s committee of the whole (“COW”) meeting, challenging several contracts and purchases that deserved to be challenged, including the contract for the Red Speed Illinois automated enforcement camera at Northwest Hwy. and Oakton.  When that contract was signed in 2010, it reportedly was for an initial four-year term, with two additional three-year options that could extend the service through 2020.

Police Chief Frank Kaminski’s endorsement of Red Speed notwithstanding, the mere fact that a contract contains options doesn’t mean those options have to be exercised, or that they represent the best deal for the taxpayers.

Public Works Committee chair Ald. Marty Maloney (7th) argued that vendors often build better terms into multi-year option-based contracts, and that re-bidding contracts involve increased City staff costs.  We don’t disagree with either of those points.

But Mazzuca correctly noted that excusing re-bidding based on contract options can very well deprive the taxpayers of potentially less-costly alternatives that may not have been available when the existing contracts were signed.  Consequently, such options should be nothing more than a safety net for the City in case a better deal ISN’T available through re-bidding – not a substitute for re-bidding.

If members of City staff want to shirk their duty to the taxpayers and ignore the City Code competitive bidding requirements, they should come right out and say so – and do it well enough in advance of any existing contract expiration dates so that the Council has a reasonable opportunity to order Staff to competitively bid the contract rather than end up having to exercise the option by default due to lack of time.

And if the mayor or Council members are willing to let Staff get away with such nonsense, then they owe every taxpayer an explanation of why they are letting the inmates run the asylum.

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