Monday, May 11, 2009

On Negotiating in Public

Author:
At the November 13, 2008 meeting of the Joint Committee of the Board of Supervisors and School Board, members of both boards discussed, along with staff, a new process for acquiring land for schools. This process was to give the Supervisors up-front approval of land sites before LCPS entered into negotiations with property owners. This process was followed over the past six months and resulted in a contract on the Wheatland property. The meeting transcript is available online. I thought I'd go back and revisit some of what was said.
Jim Burton
It’s difficult to open the process up to public input before you have negotiated with the land owner, it’s very difficult to do, and I don’t know how to do it.

Scott York
And I agree with that and the public should not misinterpret that.

Robert DuPree
The second issue that was mentioned was the balance that needs to be between transparency and the need for confidentiality. There is a reason why the Code of Virginia allows Executive Sessions and that is when public discussion could impair the bargaining position of the public body, and we have an obligation to the tax payers to do that.
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1 comments:

  1. That is what the RFP is supposed to do. Get the seller to state their price so you can take the technical proposal to the public and get their input before purchasing. The price is established BEFORE the public vets the sites. The public doesn't have to even see the price.

    If it is hard to get landowners to respond to a RFP - give them some incentive to participate - like if their site is one of the top 3 finalist sites they will have their property tax bills or subdivision application fees waived - or some other incentive.

    Ideally before the RFP even is issued the public should be involved to identify the site selection criteria and their WEIGHTING, which in turn would be included in the RFP.

    Any public officials who resist public input and an open bidding process just want political control to do as (and spend whatever) they please.
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