It was a night of wins last week as city commissioners approved and opened the door to a variety of much needed improvements around the city.
Thanks to some shopping from city personnel, the City of Plant City was able to score a major deal purchasing trucks from various car dealerships. Nine trucks were purchased for five city departments and divisions: Utilities Maintenance, Utilities Operations, Engineering, General Services and Building.
The former vehicles exceeded their life expectancy and were in need of replacement. The Procurement Division did some shopping around and determined the most cost effective option was to purchase five trucks from Alan Jay Chevrolet, Cadillac, Inc. at a total of $135,365.00, two trucks from Duval Motor Company at a total of $68,866.00 and two trucks from Bartow Ford Co. at a total of $94,016.35. This allowed the city to piggyback from the combined contracts for a total price of $268,247.35.
It ended up saving the city approximately $55,378.65 in comparison to sourcing a single contract.
“That’s a very good example of our procurement fleet, they shopped contracts and really got us the best pricing,” City Manager Bill McDaniel said. “If you look at the agenda report it talks about the savings and they basically saved the cost of an entire vehicle by really working the available contracts to get the best pricing.”
The city also entered into a contract with Larson’s Grading and Paving, LLC to allow the city to rent out heavy equipment and an operator to do various jobs around the city. Right now, the city has a stormwater inlet that has settled on Concord Way and requires equipment the city does not have in its inventory. With this new contract, the city can reach out to Larson’s to rent the right equipment and a specialist to do the work needed without the city having to invest fully into that piece of machinery.
McDaniel said the contract will help streamline the process of repairs around the city. To get it going the city piggybacked on an existing contract between Larson’s and the City of Lakeland. The plan is to open the item up for bids at the end of the fiscal year to see which company would best support continuing the service with the city.
Commissioners also agreed to continue its agreement with Southern Group of Florida, Inc. for its lobbying services. The company rebranded in 2019 and had formerly been called Southern Strategy Group of Tampa Bay, LLC. In 2017 the City of Plant City agreed to begin working with the company to lobby for the city’s interest in the legislature.
The group has had an agreement that costs the city no more than $50,000 a year. Over the past three years, three of the major issues it has helped the city with were securing $750,000 for the Collins Street Complete Street Improvements project in 2017, $300,000 for the McIntosh Tract Regional Park Development in 2018 and $350,000 for the McIntosh Park Integrated Water Master Plan in 2019.
Commissioners agreed to enter a new agreement for an amount not to exceed $5,000 per month from Feb. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2022 for its lobbying services. In several former meetings around town, Mayor Rick Lott and other city commissioners have said the hope is to continue to receive help for the ongoing McIntosh Park project, which McDaniel has said will have a massive impact not just on Plant City, but on the state as a whole.