above board

City attorney: Contract with printing company co-owned by mayor 'above board'

Anthony Williams, Abilene mayor (Photo11: Steve Butman)

A printing contract between the city of Abilene and a business co-owned by Mayor Anthony Williams is “above board,” Abilene’s city attorney said in correspondence with the Abilene Reporter-News.

That opinion was echoed last week by Councilman Shane Price, who approved the contract in 2016, along with every other councilman but Williams, who excused himself from the discussion and vote.

“Anthony Williams did not do anything unethical or unlawful.”

City of Abilene attorney Stanley SmithDoing business with the city

Discussion about the printing contract began percolating because of a Freedom of Information request from local media.

Williams provided a copy of all contracts since March 2016 between the city and Southwest Direct Printing Company, owned by Williams.

Since June 2016, the city has done $159,527 in business with Southwest Direct, the last order listed as Dec. 31.

That breaks down, said Williams, who does not directly manage the business, to roughly $5,300 a month over a 30-month period, with a profit margin between 10 percent to 15 percent.

The city contract represents around 3 percent of the company’s total business.

The previous three years, 2013-2015, around $336,000 was paid to the city’s former provider, Abilene Printing & Stationery, Williams said.

Williams said the comparative decrease in costs could be attributed to "technology and (because) we were the lowest price.”

Possibility opensBuy Photo

Shane Price, City Council candidate 2018 (Photo11: Greg Jaklewicz/Reporter-News)

Southwest opened for business in August 2015, Williams said. Currently, it has 12 employees, with a monthly payroll of around $30,000.

“When we responded to that bid, we were a brand new company,” he said.

Williams and his wife, Lynette, started Southwest Direct by purchasing the remnants of a previous business, including equipment, furnishings and a customer list, through proceeds gained from flipping houses, he said.

In addition to his mayoral duties, Williams has a full-time job at Abilene Christian University as chief business services officer. Southwest Direct is managed day-to-day by Phil Gage.

“I excused myself and I left, I was out of the council chambers, because I wanted the council to have an open conversation without the awkwardness of me being present.”

Mayor Anthony Williams, about Southwest Direct discussion

According to city documents, 15 potential vendors were directly informed of the request for proposals. Williams said Southwest Direct was among those “contacted to submit a bid.”

Williams said that when he heard about the possibility of the company submitting a bid for work with the city, then he “immediately engaged” City Attorney Stanley Smith “to be sure that if we did respond, we did things accordingly.”

After the blind bid process went forward, and it was determined that Southwest had the lowest bid, Norm Archibald, who was then mayor of Abilene, wanted the item to be on the council’s regular agenda, requiring public discussion, rather than on the consent agenda, in which multiple items can be approved with a single vote.

“I didn’t even want to be in the room,” Williams said. “I excused myself and I left, I was out of the council chambers, because I wanted the council to have an open conversation without the awkwardness of me being present. And the council unanimously voted to award the bid to Southwest Direct.”

The bid process itself is sealed, Price noted.

“No one knows what any other business has submitted until they are all opened together at the bid opening, which is open to the public,” he said. “The bid itself is publicized in the newspaper and anyone can participate in the bid process.”

And Williams went “above and beyond what was required by stepping out of the council chambers when the item was presented, discussed and voted on,” Price said, noting that by state law, a council member must declare a conflict and abstain when he has an interest in an item.

“Since state law has the requirement for declaring a conflict, it stands to reason that the expectation is not that the City cannot do business with an elected official,” Price said. “It just requires a level playing field that includes abstaining from the discussion and vote.”

Williams said he knows that there is a propensity to assume government contracts might hide some sort of wrongdoing.

"But I challenge you to look in regard to the way this was done, and in fact it was captured on video," he said of the council's discussion. "Everything we did not only abided by (the requirements) of state statute, it went beyond that."

Procedures Outlined

Stanley Smith (Photo11: City of Abilene)

Smith noted in the documents shared with the newspaper that Texas law, with some exceptions, requires purchases of goods or services of more than $50,000, to be handled competitive sealed bids, with a contract awarded to the lowest responsible bidder.

A city also could choose to  request competitive sealed proposals and award a contract to the vendor who provides the goods or services at the “best value” for the city.

Each municipality has "discretion" as to which purchasing approach is the best to use for any good or service, Smith said.

On Jan. 17, 2016, and again seven days later, the city published a “Notice for Proposals” in the Abilene Reporter-News, giving notice that it  was accepting written, sealed proposals for printing and copying services.

Along with the notice, the city issued a request for proposals, stating information required to be considered for contracting with the city.

“A pre-bid meeting regarding the city's request for proposals was attended by Abilene Printing & Stationary, Conley Printing Company, HVC-Ram, Southwest Direct and 3rd Street Printing.”

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“In order to get a good response to the city’s request for proposals, 15 potential vendors were directly informed,” Smith wrote.

On Jan. 27, 2016, the city conducted a pre-bid meeting, wherein interested proposers could ask questions of city staff regarding the request for proposals.

That meeting was attended by Abilene Printing & Stationary, Conley Printing Company, HVC-Ram, Southwest Direct and 3rd Street Printing.

The city received bids from each of those companies, except 3rd Street.

Typical jobs outlined included budget reports, audit reports, post cards, invitations, newsletters, fliers, posters, brochures, carbon forms, books, forms and business cards.

City staff evaluated and ranked proposals according to the criteria listed in the request, which include the ability to print and deliver the printed material as requested, performance on similar contracts, completeness of the proposal, and price.

After final evaluation and ranking, the proposal submitted by Southwest Direct was determined to be the “most advantageous proposal for the city of Abilene,” Smith wrote.

Public notice was given that the council would consider awarding the contract to Southwest Direct on March 24, 2016.

Robert Hanna (Photo11: Contributed photo)

Prior to the discussion and vote March 24, Archibald announced that Williams had declared a conflict of interest and that he had stepped out of the council chambers.

Council members discussed the contract, and Councilman Steve Savage made the motion to award the contract to Southwest, with Councilman Shane Price seconding the motion.

The motion to give the company the contract passed unanimously, with Archibald, Price, former Councilman Bruce Kreitler, former Councilman Jay Hardaway, Kyle McAlister and Savage all voting yes.

During the discussion, Savage did question whether the next lowest bidder – Abilene Printing – offered a “better deal” because of lower rates on priority and emergency printing jobs.

The bid amount separate the two companies was less than $400 a year, Savage said.

“We did not do any type of that type of printing last fiscal year, and we have never tracked that type of printing,” Hanna said in response. “… We need to know the price, but it is not a large expense item that we have historically incurred.”

Hanna explained to the council that the recommendation was “strictly a low bid award.”

“If we had a history of using emergency type of printing, that would have gone into our calculations,” he told Savage, who responded that he was simply “trying to save the taxpayers a little bit of money.”

Steve Savage, Place 6 on Abilene City Council (Photo11: City of Abilene)

Step above

Williams’ choice to not participate in the discussion or vote regarding the award and exiting the council chambers during the discussion and vote was a “step above-and-beyond that required by State law,"Smith said. 

Williams also filed the documents as required by state law prior to the council’s discussion and vote, including a Conflict of Interest Affidavit, a Local Government Officer Conflicts Disclosure Statement and a Vendor’s Conflict of Interest Questionnaire, Smith said.

In Smith’s professional opinion Williams fully “complied with all laws regarding public disclosure and abstaining from discussion and voting on this matter in which he had a conflict of interest.”

In correspondence with the Reporter-News last week, Smith was more pointed in his assessment.

“I know the city has contracted with Steve Savage to do work during his service on the City Council.”

Councilman Shane Price

“Anthony Williams did not do anything unethical or unlawful,” he wrote “… He complied fully with all laws regarding his conflict of interest in the proposal process and the award of the City's printing contract to Southwest Direct.”

Price said that he knew that other council members had in the past had done work with the city.

“I know the city has contracted with Steve Savage to do work during his service on the City Council,” Price said. “There was an incident with water getting into the basement of the main building at the old Lincoln Middle School campus. He was able to use his equipment to vacuum out the water.”

Williams said Kreitler did work for the city.

“I think that staff always followed and (the council members) followed the rules,” he said.

Williams said those who are on the council “shouldn’t get any preferential treatment” in regard to any sort of bid work for the city.

“And I would say, on the other side, as a local business person, you shouldn’t be penalized because you decided to serve the city,” he said. “… Everything that we did is far beyond what is required because we wanted to be sure it was transparent.”

The contract with the city expires in 2020, Williams said, meaning that in the next six months or so, another bidding process will likely begin, he said.