agent-maroon said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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zephyr88 said:

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BigRobSA said:

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You know who else cleaned up a pool?

That's right...Hitler.

Interesting company Trump keeps. Int.....air....uh....sontay!!!

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What are you talking about? Or is this metaphoric?

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I may have to create another bot, BigRobAH.

If folks missed the sarcasm in his post it's time to take the sarcasm meter in for some tune up.

Now who is Hitler is NASA at JSC. They had a large pond that was drained and power washed with soap to remove years of duck doodoo. Worked like a charm, water clean ducks returned then… disappeared. Returned a few days later water logged and webbed feet pointing to Jesus. Turns out residual soap and duck feathers are a problem they did Nazi coming.

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Behold the power of surfactants!

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Great idea for a sock.

Sir Factant

flown-the-coop said:

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txags92 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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txags92 said:

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Really easy to tell on this thread who the people are that have actual knowledge and experience with government contracting and FAR and those who just read about it in their weekly talking points memo.

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Dumb question here but wouldn't the government shut down hinder the FAR process at a critical time?

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Yes. If the group doing the contracting was part of the shutdown, they would be unable to do any work at all.

Ulysses laid it out pretty well, but the average American has no clue about how long, drawn out, and inefficient the typical government contracting process is. Going from the idea of "we need to do something about the reflecting pool before the 250th birthday celebration" to awarding a contract would typically be a minimum 9-12 month process even without the shutdown in the middle. Using sole source awards for simple and smaller (yes <$10 mil is a smaller govt award) is a very common thing and it saves the government money in the long run for the most part.

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Shutdowns depend on what is shutdown and would not be impacted by the latest one, little if any by the prior one.

Our contracts run through HUD CDBG programs and over nearly 20 years now no shutdown has had even the slightest impact other than being sent an email confirming such.

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To do this project through the traditional process, they would have had to start early last summer at a minimum to have it awarded by March. There was the longest shutdown in govt history last fall that absolutely would have affected the Dept of Interior procurement group doing the work. Our DoD work was impacted in that we could not get new tasks that were already funded awarded, and could not get documents reviewed to keep projects moving forward during that shut down. Our work went on, but the government folks were unable to do their part.

Of course. Was just clarifying clumsily that I do not believe Dept of Interior was not part of the just resolved shutdown (I believe).

flown-the-coop said:

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Of course. Was just clarifying clumsily that I do not believe Dept of Interior was not part of the just resolved shutdown (I believe).

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I see what you did there.

Well done.

I have tickets for the Zac Brown Band UFC 250 concert this saturday at Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool.

it sounds exhausting to be standing in lines for hours and then the concert won't even start until 2100 but it may be worth it just to see the Reflecting Pool

Paging pagerman! It has been long enough now for you to be over your mourning period to come back and give us Chapter 2 on government contract and labor law.

Per pagerman, if I have a contractor I trust and know to be the best for a task, if I become a government official, I can't hire that contractor if I need work done in that area.

Particularly if they are a woman owned business with relevant expertise working with state and local governments in the DC area!!

pagerman @ work said:

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Previous failures by other administrations still doesn't explain why the contract needed to be directly awarded to that vendor without competition.

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It's explained multiple times in the thread by………government contracting people.

It confirms my original hypothesis that they bent the rules invoking an emergency for the J&A. Were lives in danger? Was property in danger of damage? Was it necessary to not interrupt Federal operations? If you can't say yes to one of those 3, the basis of the J&A is bogus. Saying the reflecting pool would suffer permanent damage without this award is IMO a stretch but probably their best defense.

I am not niave enough to know that such abuse happens daily in Federal procurement. Currently I am in the middle of one being "competed" but I will win. I still feel it is a crappy deal exercising six other contractors who don't stand a chance.

Pagerman, oh Pagerman. Where are you? I need you to deboonk all the haters so as to prove that I should continue to be outraged about this issue.

zephyr88 said:

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Such an obtuse response.

If you have to explain your point to make a point (which you didn't)… did you really make a point to start with?

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Wow....most people seem to think I'm acute. "Handsome" has even been thrown about.






Usually by me. But still....thrown about.

At no least he didn't call you morbidly obtuse, cause that would be inaccurate and downright mean.

flown-the-coop said:

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At no least he didn't call you morbidly obtuse, cause that would be inaccurate and downright mean.

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Yeah, I mean, I've lost a lot of weight to get here. I took the sine given to me by God and decided to get in better shape.

BigRobSA said:

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zephyr88 said:

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Such an obtuse response.

If you have to explain your point to make a point (which you didn't)… did you really make a point to start with?

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Wow....most people seem to think I'm acute. "Handsome" has even been thrown about.






Usually by me. But still....thrown about.

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Heard they call you a real Asset at work. They pronounce it asshat, but I am sure that is just their accent…

BigRobSA said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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At no least he didn't call you morbidly obtuse, cause that would be inaccurate and downright mean.

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Yeah, I mean, I've lost a lot of weight to get here. I took the sine given to me by God and decided to get in better shape.

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What a tangent this thread has gone off on.

Love how some think the previous administration's project "bids" were really "sealed"…

txags92 said:

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BigRobSA said:

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flown-the-coop said:

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At no least he didn't call you morbidly obtuse, cause that would be inaccurate and downright mean.

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Yeah, I mean, I've lost a lot of weight to get here. I took the sine given to me by God and decided to get in better shape.

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What a tangent this thread has gone off on.

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Who did he get to cosine his agreement?

BQ78 said:

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It confirms my original hypothesis that they bent the rules invoking an emergency for the J&A. Were lives in danger? Was property in danger of damage? Was it necessary to not interrupt Federal operations? If you can't say yes to one of those 3, the basis of the J&A is bogus. Saying the reflecting pool would suffer permanent damage without this award is IMO a stretch but probably their best defense.

I am not niave enough to know that such abuse happens daily in Federal procurement. Currently I am in the middle of one being "competed" but I will win. I still feel it is a crappy deal exercising six other contractors who don't stand a chance.

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This confirms your original hypothesis?

That's not the J&A that is the RFP. Looks like they based their emergency on visitor safety. You may be convinced it is a strong case for sole source, my opinion is it is weak. But as you escalate in the bureaucracy you start getting more political,rather than regulation based decisions. If Trump wanted his friend, they were going to win and the CO was told, find a way. Happens all the time.

BQ78 said:

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That's not the J&A that is the RFP. Looks like they based their emergency on visitor safety. You may be convinced it is a strong case for sole source, my opinion is it is weak. But as you escalate in the bureaucracy you start getting more political,rather than regulation based decisions. If Trump wanted his friend, they were going to win and the CO was told, find a way. Happens all the time.

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It is the J&A. Here's a screen capture of the entire first page. It was at the link I posted earlier and apparently you didn't open the link and read the document before replying that it confirmed your original opinion. This isn't the RFP.

And so you can see the approval chain with all the names, here's the last page of the J&A.

How is the blue paint going to keep all the ducks and geese from crapping in the pool? This is the biggest contributor to algae blooms in the pool.

See bullet 2 on the cover page two posts above.

BQ78 said:

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I'm saying it wasn't an emergency and it should not have been sole source. Governor corruption is present no matter who is in charge. Is this pimple on my ass worse than the arm the Democrats cut off? No. But I would like a fair press and well run government. I expect to be denied on all counts.

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It doesn't have to be an emergency to use a sole source justification. I have done sole source justification many times over the years. Granted, it was at the state level, but I imagine the rules are similar.

The emergency was the date of July 4th and all the preceding dates leading up to it for the celebration - seems that another administration took a longtime, spent a lot of money and had no results

flown-the-coop said:

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zephyr88 said:

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BigRobSA said:

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You know who else cleaned up a pool?

That's right...Hitler.

Interesting company Trump keeps. Int.....air....uh....sontay!!!

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What are you talking about? Or is this metaphoric?

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I may have to create another bot, BigRobAH.

If folks missed the sarcasm in his post it's time to take the sarcasm meter in for some tune up.

Now who is Hitler is NASA at JSC. They had a large pond that was drained and power washed with soap to remove years of duck doodoo. Worked like a charm, water clean ducks returned then… disappeared. Returned a few days later water logged and webbed feet pointing to Jesus. Turns out residual soap and duck feathers are a problem they did Nazi coming.

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Can someone please explain how "the reflecting pool looks gross and the 4th of July which we totally didn't realize was coming up is almost here" constitutes an emergency?

EFR said:

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Can someone please explain how "the reflecting pool looks gross and the 4th of July which we totally didn't realize was coming up is almost here" constitutes an emergency?

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Again, sole source justification does not require an emergency.

Rex Racer said:

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EFR said:

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Can someone please explain how "the reflecting pool looks gross and the 4th of July which we totally didn't realize was coming up is almost here" constitutes an emergency?

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Again, sole source justification does not require an emergency.

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This. If something is needed on a timeframe that can't be completed within the traditional contracting process, you can sole source it. It is likely that the scope of the problem was not apparent over the winter when the water was cold and/or frozen and the bacteria was not growing. When the spring warmup came, it became an issue.

Does it have the proper elements and form of a J&A to decorate the file? Absolutely. Does it make a compelling argument that it is an urgent requirement that only this one company can fulfill in the brief time left? I do not think so.

There does not seem to be anything about the company indicating any extraordinary expertise either other than saying the system must use the patent, probably owned by the winning company. With no explanation of why that patent was essential.
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Assigning urgency to looking and smelling good for the 250th birthday of the country does not resonate either. I suppose if you subscribe to it was important for Louis XIV to turn a rural hunting lodge into one of the world's greatest palaces to tell the rest of Europe not to mess with France, it might be urgent (ironically one of his biggest headaches and problems were his pools and fountains). But for the sake of argument, let us agree that looking good at 250 is especially important and it must be fixed urgently.

I do not know the whole story about the pool and its troubled recent history but based on what others have posted, this problem has been around during four presidential administrations, two of them Donald Trump's, so this is at best procurement incompetence by the government. Because of that incompetence, other companies are locked out of competing for it, because it is now "urgent." Screwing around with the problem for years does not urgent make IMO.

I am not sure what your point was in posting the J&A approvers. You made assumptions about what I did or did not do in reviewing the J&A before posting, so I will assume you are trying to say, "look no political appointee made the decision." That is very laughable if you think no one above these people's level made or could have made decisions to "get 'er done."

In a past life as a Contracting Officer, I have read and unfortunately had to write J&As this weak myself, so I can read between the lines.

amazing how the people who didn't have one single solitary F to give about "10% for the Big Guy" are the same ones outraged by this tiny clean up job by a reputable vendor for a great price. oh you care so much about corruption and the sanctity of bidding and awarding government contracts?

were certain competitive bidding policies or laws for government contracts actually intentionally secretly subverted here or was some gov agency allowed to award this work in this case under the rules?

Meh... .I'd have painted it for much less than 6.9M.....

Texaspainter said:

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Meh... .I'd have painted it for much less than 6.9M.....

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Yes, but could you install equipment for microbubbles?