Biz Blogs

Richard Rosenthal

Thank You Alan Halberstadt

Posted February 2, 2010 @ 7:13PM

In this month's issue of BizX Alan has taken the opportunity to defend the city's purchasing policy and has referred to my blog. It really didn't matter what he said about my comments as long as he spelled my name right, which he did. Unfortunately, I am not running for public office so the publicity is of little value.
However, I must point out that my position was (and you can verify this in my previous blog): "The City's tendering rules obviously are flawed if a local contractor with a lower bid, who obviously built an excellent building, would have lost this contract."
The key is the word "if".
I have no argument with Alan's detailed explanation of why local preference could be a problem and could even be illegal. My issue only was as I stated and I relied on the Windsor Star report of the audit as did most people. We didn't read the audit and trusted the media for an accurate account.
However, now that he has tried to justify the policy, I must point out that local businesses in Windsor often have much higher costs, due to higher taxes, than some competitors whose businesses are in less expensive tax jurisdictions. This does seem unfair in that they are paying the taxes that pay the contractors who win the business with lower quotes.
There should be some way to compensate for this but I don't know what it is and if I did I would probably have to run for a seat on Council to fix it (and its way past my time to do that).
So Alan, you try to work that one out so it is fair for all concerned. I think you are a very good member of Council and know if anyone can come up with a solution it will probably be you.
by Richard Rosenthal

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