Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/127088
Sarasota News Leader May 3, 2013 Barbetta told Ed Gable, the county's director of general services, "This is an $8 million contract, so I don't want to get into this thing and find out they can't perform. We've had this happen before. It happened with mowing." In January 2012, the board awarded a mowing contract for all three county zones to Bloomings Landscape and Turf Management Inc. of Sarasota, whose bid was about half what the second-lowest bidder in each zone had proposed. Page 51 On May 22, 2012, Thiele appeared before the commissioners to tell them the county would be dismissing Bloomings because it was unable to perform the work as expected. MORE DETAILS On April 23, when the fuel contract reappeared on the commission's Consent Agenda, Barbetta pulled it for discussion, just as he had on April 9. Gable explained that staff had requested that all bidders supply their markups per gallon for each of 11 categories of fuel. The base price of fuel is established daily by the Oil Price Information Services, a national organization, he added. Although commissioners questioned the differences in the bid amounts, then Procurement Official Mark Thiele said, "We have all the confidence that this particular vendor, who has been doing most of the [mowing] work for the last six years [in the county] can Staff also asked what each bidder would continue doing the work." charge to supply fuel within 24 hours in an Charts show bid details for a Sarasota County fuel contract and projected county usage in the next fiscal year. Image courtesy Sarasota County