I just want to give my two cents in this:
First here is the back-ground story:
I have done quite a bit of work this past year as a sub for a local company. The bulk of my work has been doing removals for a local municipality. This municipality was hiring and I applied for the job and did not get the job. The irony is that the municipality went with the company that I was working with to remove large American Elms that were infected with DED. The contract was awarded to the company I was subbing for because it gave the lowest bid. These trees were in the 18-45" diameter range. As you can probably imagine, there was a VAST range of canopy diameter and difficulty in removal. After working all summer on these trees (many of which were truly monsters for our area and required expertise in almost all areas of the removal process, I have come to the conclusion that the reason the work was contracted out to a private firm was that the municipality realized it couldn't do the job without a drastic allocation of already scant resources. Add to that the fact that I had to replace two side-walk tiles that I broke when I didn't rope a piece. I am insured and I accept that the responsibility was mine to pay for my mistakes. This mistake happened at the beginning of the contract and thus I was compelled to rope any large wood over the sidewalks. This slowed me down considerably and added to the operational costs of the job. Because the operational costs were higher than the contractor expected he was in my @$$ all summer try to get me to go faster and get more and more done in a ten hour day. I realized that without my expertise he couldn't have been even close to profitable and that his company would have been doing work for free for most of the fall. For various reasons including the facts that he refused to maintain his bucket-trucks' annual inspections, and that on my last day the truck rolled away from me when I put up the out-riggers because the E-brake was shot and no chocks were provided to chock the tires (I cut wooden chocks that instant and used them), I quit working with him. I have looked at several trees that were to be removed by the end of October and they are still standing. My assumptions, so far, have been proven correct in that he's not getting it done for the municipality without me. His guys don't wear PPE without me demanding it and there is no culture of safety whatsoever in his organization. He was a low-baller and I helped him out because I was new to town and needed work.
Now here is my two cents:
I think that if this doofus wants to under-bid you by $10G, then you should let him hang. I understand that the bid you gave was well thought out and that it would have been the low bid if said doofus had not underbid you. I also understand that your community would have been given a thorough job that would have been completed within a proper and agreed to time-frame. I think it's honorable that you even tried to hire a lawyer to communicate what a terrible idea it is to have the under-qualified doofus do the work. Good on you for trying. However, I am convinced that the process is flawed when the low-baller gets the job! The municipality wants to get a difficult and expensive problem solved for as little as possible and politics dictate that those involved in the decision-making process be more conscious of the cost of the contract than the cost to fix the disaster that will most surely afflict the municipality in the aftermath of the low-baller's attempt to complete a job on which they had no business to bid. I believe that either the municipality or the low-baller doofus will be on the hook for such items as broken sidewalks, crushed cars, damaged homes, and (hopefully not) injured or even killed workers or bystanders. Either the contract states that the doofus is liable for damages or the politicians are being incredibly irresponsible with the tax dollars that have been entrusted to them by their constituents. Perhaps what will happen is that the municipality will have to award a new contract to a company to finish the job. I would like to suggest that you look into getting involved in the future in the process of determining the rules by which your municipality follows when it awards contracts for tree work. You could donate your time as a public service. Be professional and give the proper advice even when it means that your company may not be awarded a contract this time around. You will be benefiting your community in a number of ways and if you get involved may even make a difference in the future. I have been left feeling miffed to say the least by my experience with this process and I am sure that you have too. Thanks for sharing and good luck in the future. I think that municipal contracts are certainly an important aspect of a diverse work portfolio. However if communities don't value arboriculture and want to give tree removal contracts to unqualified doofuses, then citizens will have to speak up and demand that those who made the decisions about handing out the contracts be taken to task. Additionally qualified arborists may be uninterested in bidding on municipal contracts in communities which don't require minimum standards beyond the low bid. It's political, it's personal, it's local. Get involved and make a difference. Wow, for only two-cents, you all got your money's worth! Thanks for listening and thanks MTGriz for posting.
BTW MTGriz, I spent three summers in Babb, MT... I hope you make it out to GNP once in a while.
