Two bidders who lost out on a major Honolulu rail contract have filed protests challenging the City's $1.4 billion choice.
The issue surrounds the lucrative rail car or "core systems" contract, awarded last month to an Italy-based manufacturer. The other two bidders say mistakes were made, and a council member has called for an investigation.
Ansaldo Honolulu picked up the coveted rail car contract award last month as part of Honolulu's multibillion dollar mass transit project.
The design-build portion of their bid came in around $570 million, plus more to operate it, and that's where a competitor says Ansaldo wasn't the best deal.
"We are extremely concerned that the evaluation process missed a very key point. Lifecycle cost, cost to the taxpayers," said Gino Antoniello, vice president of transportation systems and equipment for Sumitomo Corporation of America
Sumitomo says they'd cost $900 million less over 30 years of operations.
"From the City's standpoint I think there are 900 million reasons for them to work with us," Antoniello said.
Sumitomo says its uncharacteristic for them to file a protest, but that they grew additionally concerned after a post-award debriefing with the city where they say they heard some of the City's concerns for the first time.
"If you had these concerns, the process does require, in fact it obligates the city, to seek clarity," Antoniello said. "In this case we regret that we can't just move on. "
Competitor Bombardier says they feel the same and for some additional reasons.
"We found that we were improperly disqualified from the competition. That's our belief having talked to the City and reviewed the documents," said Andrew Robbins of Bombardier Transportation.
Bombardier says in three separate proposals dating back to June an element over which they were later disqualified was present in each all the way along.
"The City had an obligation to point out that was a problem for them and failed to do so it mislead us into assuming there was no real issue," Robbins said.
Bombardier says they'd save taxpayers the most and want to be evaluated side by side
"The City should finish its complete evaluation and judge for itself which proposal offered the best value," Robbins said.
The City says the protests will be reviewed according to procurement law. On Monday night City Councilman Tom Berg introduced a resolution calling for investigation of the procurement process, and asking the administration to go back to the drawing board.
