After running it for more than a decade, the Mission Economic Development Association (MEDA) risks losing control of the Mission Bartlett Garage in lieu of the association’s non-profit status. Meanwhile, Pacific Park Management, Inc., a for-profit business headquartered in downtown San Francisco, might win the 6-year contract even though they already manage several garages.
When MEDA staff first began running the Mission Bartlett Garage 14 years ago, they were fairly naive of how it should be done, said MEDA’s executive director, Luis Granados. But over time, MEDA has learned to maintain its only garage as well as any big-time operator.
Granados explained that during the last four years in particular, MEDA, an economic development corporation that provides technical assistance, loan packaging and advocacy targeted at minority and women-owned businesses in the Mission, has made the Mission Bartlett Garage a priority. Thusly, their audits have been approved every year, and their workers, some of whom have been employed for 14 years, have remained loyal.
Yet despite such a successful tract record, when the Department of Parking and Traffic sent out its initial Request for Proposal for the Mission Bartlett Garage to garage operators in the city, MEDA was overlooked.
Though it has been managing the garage for several years, MEDA never was given the courtesy of even a phone call regarding the RFP (Request for Proposal), said Tomas Lee, legislative aid to Supervisor Tom Ammiano.
“When we questioned why we weren’t sent a Request for Proposal, DPT said ‘oops, sorry’ and started the process over again,” Granados said.
This was not the first, nor the last, bone of contention with the RFP’s framework, content and structure for MEDA. During the last year, the association’s staff has been told on at least three separate occasions that they should not have future operations of the garage, said Granados.
“This was said once prior to the initiation of the RFP process and twice during the RFP process,” Granados said. “This statement was last made on Oct. 11, 2005.”
Then there’s the RFP itself. Administered by the DPT, a low bid counts for 60 percent, while experience and qualifications count for 40 percent. Under this system, operators of multiple garages are favored because they are able to submit a ‘zero’ or close to ‘zero’ bid.
“It’s about how much you charge a month,” said Granados. “A large operator will bid ‘zero’ because they can distribute their overhead over multiple garages.”
But neither relevant experience nor community benefits were highly valued in this process, he contended. MEDA’s bid for the Mission Bartlett Garage included the promise that revenues from its contract, rather than going to pay salaries at MEDA, would go to a community asset fund.
Also, MEDA assured that all employees would be retained, with some staff being promoted to management, and that some funds generated within the neighborhood would stay there.
“The dollars would not be going back to some board of directors,” said Lee.
Still, MEDA came out second in the bid process because it is not considered a Disadvantaged Business, Granados said.
The Human Rights Commission awards 10 percent worth of bonus points to an RFP if its applicant qualifies as a ‘disadvantaged’ entity, Granados explained. So, for example, if an applicant earns 160 points for quality and experience and another 240 points for the low bid, it would gain a total of 440 points if it were a Disadvantaged Business.
Pacific Park Management, Inc., the fist place bidder in this process, received ‘disadvantaged’ points, despite the fact that it’s a parking conglomerate and manages seven DPT garages, four SFO Airport garages and several Port of San Francisco garages, said Granados.
“I don’t think Pacific Park Management could possibly fit anyone’s criteria of disadvantaged,” he said.
MEDA, on the other hand, does not qualify as a Disadvantaged Business, despite the fact that it is Latino managed with a Latino board and has served the needs of small businesses and families of color for the past 32 years.
To qualify, an entity must be for-profit, said Bayard Fong, committee member with the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise of the Human Rights Commission (HRC).
This rule dates back to 1983 or 1984 and likely is meant to compensate for the high cost of being a for-profit business here in San Francisco, Fong said, adding that non-profits might get tax exemptions that for-profits would not.
But had MEDA been awarded the extra ‘disadvantaged’ points, it would have been the first place bidder, not Pacific Park Management, Inc., said Granados.
“Once the proposals were evaluated, MEDA requested a written report on its scoring on the RFP process,” Granados wrote in an e-mail to Beyond Chron. “In a letter dated September 14, 2005, MEDA is shown as receiving 102.2 points in the Qualifications and Experience category, compared to 145.6 for Pacific Park Management. After MEDA questioned those results, we received a second letter dated September 23, 2005 that reversed the scoring.”
Fong suggested that anyone wanting to change the rule should take it up with the Rules Committee, which currently is reviewing the Disadvantaged Business ordinance to determine whether ‘disadvantaged’ status still should be administered by the HRC and how it should be funded.
Meanwhile, MEDA is consulting with Ammiano and Lee to figure out if a compromise with Pacific Park Management, Inc can be reached.
After MEDA’s bid amount was announced at the Nov. 15, 2005 Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) board meeting – the final straw for Granados – MEDA approached Ammiano’s office about irregularities in the RFP process.
“We thought it would be advantageous to have them keep the contract,” Lee said. “They’re a valued member of the community.”
So, at the Nov. 22, 2005 Board of Supervisors meeting, Ammiano brought forth a resolution urging the Board of Directors of the MTA to delay finalizing the Mission Bartlett Garage contract and to consider dividing the contract between MEDA and Pacific Park Management, Inc.
The MTA board hasn’t voted on this issue yet, but Granados said that his association was interested in working with DPT to make it a “win-win situation,” as it was for the Japan Center garage.
“[DPT] did a soul source with Japan Center and did not put its contract out to bid,” said Granados. “Since then, the garage has generated $100,000 in community benefits.”
DPT and MTA staff members did not respond to requests for interviews.
