As I reported earlier, County staff is recommending that the Chimes Way Park Design project be awarded to the Hilton Head Island firm Wood+Partners.
On December 11, 2008, local engineer Frank Fabre protested the award in a letter to Paul Nobles, county purchasing supervisor. Fabre points out to Nobles that Wood+Partners was awarded contract even though hadn’t been approved as qualified engineer by the Board of County Commissioners until two weeks after the solicitation was closed.
The solicitation for the park design closed on Oct. 23, 2008. Wood+Partners weren’t approved by the BOCC until Nov. 6, 2008. How can you bid on work before you are approved to do so? Doesn’t this undermine the whole approval process?
During the review process, the panel ranked both Fabre Engineering and Wood+Partners as the top proposals. Yet Wood+Partners is recommended to be given the $68K contract.