This past week council decided to award the Aquatic Center Management contract based upon their desire for friendly relationships instead of on performance and cost.  The result is that the city will likely pay $20,000 or more per year than the city needed to pay in order to get equal or better performance.  I also question whether it makes sense to bend over backwards to keep friendly relationships with our current parks and recreation department given all things we are missing despite already giving them more than $150,000 a year supposedly for that work.
 
The process to award the Aquatic Center contract was flawed from the beginning because City staff and most City leaders already decided the contract was going to be renewed.  Staff and council did everything possible to prevent those of us that desire an open bid process from getting the City to do an open bid.  Even though the people that oppose open competition for City work got their way, a management company that had been trying to engage the City for more than 6 months finally reached out to me wondering why we as a City wouldn't let him make an offer to manage the Aquatic facility.  That out reach led to City Staff and most of City Council reluctantly allowing the company to make an offer if he were willing to do it based on what he thought the City needed.  Staff did not volunteer to give him information nor was Council willing to support me when I expressed my desire that we should be proactive in making sure he could give us an accurate bid.  Despite all the hurdles and the almost no chance his bid would get a fair look, this company took the time to put together a professional and comprehensive bid.  Using that bid and the previous costs at the Aquatic Center, city staff did what they called an apple to apple comparison.   Then they reaffirmed they wanted to renew the current Aquatic Center Management relationship. 
 
There are many problems with the apple to apple comparison that the City Manager contends shows that it will be cheaper to keep our current management company instead of going with the company that took the initiative to put together an unsolicited bid.  First in the current contract the cost floats.  In 2014 the aquatic center expenses were $388,834, in 2013 they were $369,740 and in 2012 they were $425,792.   In the alternate bid there is a maximum cost.  Next year we don't know if last year's low costs will be the same as next year but we do know the most it could have cost us with the other company.  This is important for a couple of reasons.
 
In the apple to apple comparison for 2014 the cost were evaluated so that the renewed contract looked to be about $39,000 less than the unsolicited bid.  Looking further in the apple to apple comparison, because we pay higher management fees in later years of the renewed contract, when 2017 comes around, the difference between it and the unsolicited bid drops to about $24,000.  Looking at 2012 historical expenses and comparing them to the unsolicited bid we see the difference for 2015 would have been about $2,000 and in 2017 the unsolicited bid would actually be $13,000 cheaper. 
 
Going a little deeper the committee heard staff tell us that the difference in actual expenses between 2012 and 2014 was due mostly because of a differences in attendance.  Everyone knows that attendance in 2014 was 28,351 while the attendance in 2012 was 86,977 but what most people don't know is that the average daily attendance before July 8, 2012  (1531 per day) was significantly higher than the daily attendance after the 8th (390 per day).  If the daily attendance would have stayed the same for all of 2012 it only stands to reason that the 2012 expenses would have been much higher than $425,792.  I believe the main objective of having the Aquatic Center is to provide a recreational facility for the greatest number of residents as possible .  Why would we award a contract that costs us more money the more successful we are at getting people to the Aquatic Center when we have an alternate choice of a fixed cost? 
 
Lets look even deeper at the $39,000 difference in 2014 cost compared to the unsolicited bid.  Remember the City did not volunteer to give the bidder any information about how we operate the Aquatic Center so the bidder made the decision to bid the entire period from Memorial day to Labor Day.  In 2015 this turns out to be 108 days.  In 2014 there were 101 days between Memorial and Labor Day.  7% few days to operate.  Looking at the unsolicited bid it doesn't look like there were any deductions for weather days.  This same management company typically gives a credit to Cities for weather days.  For instance in 2014 they rebated almost $20,000 to Tipp City from their guaranteed maximum cost.  We as a City knew they rebated for weather days and we knew that they didn't include a rebate clause in the unsolicited bid.  Yet we didn't have enough interest in the unsolicited bid to ask if this was something that we could include in our contract.  We didn't have enough interest to get a bid for years 2016, or 2017. 
 
Without actually doing an apple to apple comparison I can't definitively make the statement that the fixed price unsolicited bid would have been cheaper if we were using that company in 2014.  But is certainly looks like it would have been close to the same cost.  It seems pretty obvious that for 2015, 2016 and 2017 the fixed price bid would be much less costly if we were successful in getting people to use the Aquatic Center. 
 
In committee other council members explained that they were ready to renew with the same management company even if it cost $20,000 more a year.  The reason given is because that management company is a friend of the City and rewarding friends is more important than a few thousand dollars.  Keep in mind that this is the same management company that the city gives $150,000 a year supposedly as a reward for being our parks and recreation department.  Of course, our parks and recreation department hasn't organize any tennis leagues at Thomas Cloud, 3 on 3 Basketball tournaments at Cottonwood park or youth Frisbee golf events at community park; they do have a relationship to refer their best soccer players to the Kettering select organization instead of the Huber Select Soccer organization that brings to Huber Heights one of the biggest nationally recognized soccer tournaments events each year.  

Update ------------------------
One of the readers of this post did point out that my implication that we don't see them put on any recreation events out side their immediate area is incorrect. I've brought those positive comments forward so they are available.  I appreciate the input and the fact that they are involved in some events outside their immediate area.

Let me say again I believe this statement is correct:  The management company you refer to is not sending any select soccer kids to Kettering.  A partnership program had been created to provide local families other options to avoid them leaving our community play soccer. To date, no teams have been created. The management company has held basketball camps, and a variety of other summer camps in the parks each summer as well as 5k races and a half marathon on behalf of the city's parks and recreation department.  

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Personally if the choice for spending $20,000  is to maintain our cur current relationship with our current management company or refurbish the tennis courts at Community Park into pickle ball courts, I'd go for pickle ball.  Of course it frustrates me that this council continually decides so many no-bid contract decisions based upon friendship instead of doing a reasonable assessment of performance or cost.   
 

THE KROGER AQUATIC CENTER AT THE HEIGHTS 2012 Attendance
MAY	Attendance	JUNE	Attendance	JULY	Attendance	AUGUST	Attendance	SEPT	Attendance
26	2862	1	CLOSED	1		1	684	1	65
27	2745	2	436	2	900	2	767	2	CLOSED
28	3400	3	680	3	1125	3	734	3	CLOSED
29	589	4	788	4	2297	4	112
30	643	5	CLOSED	5	1400	5	95
31	1032	6	526	6	1652	6	425
		7	622	7	2352	7	365
		8	1865	8	2142	8	607
		9	2581	9	643	9	Closed
		10	2626	10	826	10	123
		11	CLOSED	11	918	11	3
		12	1112	12	1436	12	203
		13	1014	13	610	13	80
		14	1360	14	501	14	95
		15	2078	15	195	15	405
		16	2000	16	881	16	605
		17	275	17	1132	17	87
		18	1470	18	226	18	127
		19	3456	19	CLOSED	19	152
		20	1921	20	112	20	129
		21	3316	21	906	21	99
		22	1450	22	1212	22	74
		23	3382	23	517	23	86
		24	2537	24	724	24	161
		25	775	25	354	25	782
		26	683	26	closed	26	Closed
		27	1626	27	410	27	Closed
		28	2643	28	460	28	60
		29	586	29	575	29	55
		30	915	30	602	30	122
				31	408	31	165
Total	11271		42723		25516		7402		65