At Minute 28:00 Councilmember Marc Elrich makes the following statement to the MCPS Chief Technology Officer Sherwin Collette during the Council's hearing:
"Now, Mr. Collette and I had a conversation yesterday. And, what you described to me...[sigh]...you didn't say you competively bid. You wouldn't know whether there were any other bidders, cause you told me, correct me if I am wrong, that you negotiated a price directly with Promethean World. And Promethean instructed Dell to sell the product to us at the negotiated price. So you wouldn't 've know if there were any other bidders, because you didn't bid it. You simply went to Promethean and negotiated what you felt was a really good price.
It may be a really good price. I have no ability to judge whether it is a good price or a bad price. But, it is not a bidding process. And, it doesn't give other people the opportunity at the local level to compete with the bid. And, it wouldn't give anybody the opportunity to look at this, and say next time this comes up for bid I know what my competition is and I am going to have to do better..."
And then Councilmember Elrich went on to vote 'yes' on spending millions of taxpayer dollars for a product which he states, "I have no ability to judge whether it is a good price or a bad price." The vote was, of course, unanimous. The council is charged with managing the entire county budget, some $4Billion. That is one of their main responsibilities. Yet here we have one Councilmember so incurious that he cannot be bothered to find out whether the price is 'good' or 'bad.'
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