good afternoon everyone and i apologize i apologize for the delay i'm very sorry for making this inconvenient for everyone but it was important that we take care of some purchasing business related to this solicitation so we're ready to get started good afternoon i am carolyn messersmith purchasing manager and the meeting facilitator i would like to call to order this meeting this initial evaluation committee meeting for requests for proposals number pnc 212-9978p1 continuing consultant services for roadway and traffic projects for highway construction and engineering division the time is 4 13 pm on october 24th 2025. this meeting is being held through microsoft teams some representatives from the county are physically here in room 430 of the governmental center building east located in fort lauderdale florida attendees please mute your microphones or other devices to limit background noise this is a public meeting and is being recorded by broward county the video recordings serves as the official recording of the meeting meeting recordings along with materials reviewed by the evaluation committee as part of the evaluation process will be available on the purchasing division website under the rl rli rfp repository this meeting has been publicly noticed the me the purpose of the meeting is to determine responsiveness and responsibility of the proposing vendors only those vendors that have been determined by the evaluation committee today to be both responsive and responsible to the solicitation requirements and shortlisted may proceed to the final evaluation committee meeting for presentations and ranking at the time of the solicitations advertising deadline 2 pm on august 15 2025 13 proposals were received me meeting attendance is recorded in the following ways the purchasing division records attendance of county county staff physically here in room 430 all virtual attendees including county staff use the chat in microsoft teams to click on the link or scan the qr code with your mobile device to complete the sign-in sheet for attendees that cannot access link or qr code in the team's chat email the purchasing agent melissa cuevas at me cuevas at broward.org with the subject ec meeting attendance and indicate your name your title and the company you represent in the email body the following are the county's project staff carolina vargas project manager highway construction and engineering division melissa cuevas senior purchasing agent purchasing division ricardo abraham and gavin renard county attorney's office larino gauz from the office of economic and small business development and colleen ponnell from the risk management division we have a quorum present with the following evaluation committee members members please state present after your name is called amanda simmons construction project manager parks planning and design services parks and recreation division present thank you luis valise capital program administrator highway and bridge maintenance division public works department thank you matthew harold construction project management supervisor seaport engineering and construction division port everglades department present present thank you normal data capital program administrator highway construction engineering division public works department present thank you rebecca martinez professional engineer traffic engineering division public works department present thank you it is the evaluation committee's responsibility to review the vendors submittals to ensure solicitation requirements are met and evaluate the submittals to make a recommendation to award a contract each evaluation committee member was appointed by the county administrator to serve on this committee based on their experience the evaluation committee members are responsible for following the county's established committee procedures to select vendors which provide the services that are in the best interest of the county at the discretion of the board the evaluation committee members may be requested to substantiate their recommendation and discuss their submittal reviews the cone of silence has been in effect since the solicitations advertisement vendors are prohibited from discussing this solicitation with the county commissioners office county staff or a member of the evaluation committee the cone of silence terminates when the awarding authority takes action which ends the solicitation during the cone of silence inquiries regarding this solicitation should be directed to the project manager or the director of purchasing or his or her designee also vendors may communicate with representatives from the office of economic and small business development at any time regarding the solicitation small business enterprise or county business enterprise participation a summary of vendor rights regarding broward county competitive solicitations was issued in the solicitation in accordance with broward county procurement code each evaluation committee member must affirm that they are free of conflicts of interest as provided by part 3 chapter 112 florida statutes and the broward county employee code of ethics all evaluation committee members and the project manager assigned submitted the required broward county disclosure forms and responded that they can be fair and impartial to all vendors broward county will be utilizing a consensus scoring approach to provide a summarized group consensus evaluation score at the final evaluation committee meeting at this time the purchasing agent will report on the findings on the response and the responsiveness and the responsibility and the responsibility of the exceptions taken to the county's terms and conditions thank you proposals were received from the following vendors Albright engineering incorporated doing business as the snaps consulting incorporated Ardura group incorporated CDM Smith incorporated CHA consulting incorporated CTS engineering incorporated EAC consulting incorporated HBC engineering company Marlene engineering incorporated Marlene Engineering Incorporated, Matrix Engineering Incorporated, R.J. Behar and Company Incorporated, R.S.N.H. Incorporated, and the Corradino Group. The solicitation had two responsiveness requirements involving compliance. Criminal History Screening Practices Certification and Lobbyist Registration Certification. The Director of Purchasing recommends that all vendors be deemed responsive to all the responsiveness requirements. The solicitation had six areas of responsibility requirements. First, Affiliated Entities of the Principle. Two, Disclosure of Financial Information. Three, Insurance Requirements. Four, Florida Professional Engineer License and FDOT Prequalifications. Five, Litigation History and Six, Office of Economic and Small Business Development Program Requirements. All 13 vendors provided the required documentation for the Evaluation Committee's review for responsibility. The solicitation required vendors to state whether they accept Broward County's terms and conditions or if they do not accept them to identify the agreement provisions and vendors' proposed changes. Ten of 13 vendors accepted the county standard terms and conditions without exceptions. The following vendors took exceptions to the county standard terms and conditions. CDM Smith Incorporated, GAI Consultants Incorporated, and R.S.N.H. Incorporated. The specific exceptions taken by these vendors are identified in each submittal and will be addressed prior to presentations, if vendor advances, at the final Evaluation Committee meeting. This concludes purchasing remarks and is presented for the consideration of the Evaluation Committee. Thank you. Thank you. The next order of business is to determine vendor responsiveness as defined in the Procurement Code Section 21.40A. Is there any discussion from the Evaluation Committee regarding the determination of responsiveness? I have one question to the legal. The exception that is taken by three firms, is that impacting county business or any sort? I'm sorry. Can you also state your name for the record? I apologize. I see that three firms take an exception. Yes. So those will be reviewed later on. At this point, it has not necessarily been determined. That's something that goes on should the vendor be selected. If we – Gavin, are you on? Yes, I'm here. If you can – So I don't have a record of being asked by purchasing about the exceptions. I don't believe I do. But typically we reject the exceptions unless there's a good basis for them. So I'd have to see them and then make a determination. But unless purchasing has a record of me responding to that question. Gavin, Fernando here with the County Attorney's Office too. Just one point, just for the EC member. Even if a vendor does take exceptions in terms and conditions, that's not a matter of responsiveness or responsibility. The purpose of today's meeting is just for the initial EC meeting just to determine responsiveness or responsibility. So even if a vendor has taken exceptions to T's and C's and if the County Attorney's Office has not yet opined whether, you know, rejected, that does not have a bearing on today's vote. It's not a matter of responsiveness or responsibility. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the Evaluation Committee? Seeing none, may I have a motion with respect to the responsiveness of the vendor's submittals? Not Harold. I'd like to make a motion to find all of the vendors as responsive to the solicitation's responsiveness criteria. May I have a second? Luis Velas, second the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next order of business is to determine the responsibility of the vendors as defined in the Procurement Code Section 21.40b. Is there any discussion from the Evaluation Committee regarding responsibility of the vendors? Hearing none, may I have a motion with respect to the responsibility of the vendors? Aye. Nirmal Datta would like to make a motion to find all vendors as responsible to the solicitation. The responsibility requirement. Second. Matt Harold, second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next order of business is to determine the vendors that were found to be both responsive and responsible. May I have a motion with respect to the vendors determined to be both responsive and responsible? the solicitation requirement. May I have a second? Matt Harold, second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. At this time purchasing is going to take a brief recess for about five minutes and then we will restart the meeting. then we will restart the meeting it is currently 4 26 pm and we are in recess the time is 4 35 pm and we are back from our recess the director of purchasing recommends short listing in accordance with the procurement code section 21.42 the evaluation committee may number one short list vendors and then score or rank only the shortlisted vendors or two score and or rank all responses in addition procurement code section 21.44 procedures for ccna services states that the evaluation committee shall establish a short list of vendors for further consideration of award of the solicitation unless the director of purchasing determines that short listing would not be in the best interest of the county finally in accordance with florida statute for consultants competitive negotiation act ccna there shall be no fewer than three responsive responsible vendors evaluated however the evaluation committee determines the final number of vendors to shortlist short listing is based on the evaluation committee's evaluation of vendors entire submittals including responses to the evaluation criteria is there any discussion regarding short listing of vendors so how many do we want to shortlist this is an appropriate time to discuss yes this is when you would discuss how many you want to shortlist down to normal was thinking four i was thinking five what do you guys think or do you want some headphones um i think five okay five so then may i have a motion regarding the short listing of the vendors i would like to make a motion to charlie's five vendors to move forward to the final evaluation committee meeting for presentation and ranking matt harold seconds all in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously the evaluation committee will now shortlist the vendors the evaluation committee members were emailed a ballot link to select the vendors they wish to shortlist the number of vendors to shortlist two is five once all committee members submit their shortlist ballots to purchasing i will briefly recess the meeting to allow purchasing time to tally the ballots when purchasing notifies me that they have completed their tally i will reconvene the meeting and purchasing will read the short listing results are there any questions by the evaluation committee okay committee members please begin shortlisting harmony is there a way that you can assist him um so we'll work to assist you if you could turn your microphone on so you need to turn on your microphone i just resend the link i'm sorry i resend you the email with the link we need to resend the link and we need them to repeat it we had a glitch so they're going to resend each of you emails and so you can retally a re re shortlist the shortlist ballots have been submitted and we will now take a recess the time is 4 46 p.m and we are in recess sorry for the delay i would like to reconvene this meeting the time is now 5 0 4 pm purchasing please announce the results the shortlisted firms are cdm smith incorporated cts engineering incorporated marling engineering incorporated matrix engineering incorporated and rsnh incorporated there was a tie i'm sorry there was a tie and the tie was broken using the domestic partnership tiebreaker criteria may i have a motion to accept the named vendors as those shortlisted i would like to make a motion to accept the name vendors to proceed to final evaluation ranking may i have a second second all in favor say aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously the final evaluation committee meeting will be held on monday november 3rd 2025 at 9 30 a.m and will include vendor presentations evaluation committee members and project manager are there any topics or questions you would like the vendors to specifically address during their presentations note individual questions may be asked to specific vendors during the question and answer period and do not have to be topics or questions to all vendors so i would like to hear from the project manager consultant project manager identify common issue for this type of contract and how would you resolve it so the question has two phase identify common issue for this type of contract and how the consultant would like to resolve it i would like to hear from the project manager thank you thank you are there any other questions from the evaluation committee project manager do you have any questions okay i have a question yes i'd like to have each of the prime vendors explain what sets them apart from the competition as the prime vendor not as a team and it whole but as a prime vendor since the scope of work is so similar between all the firms what's going to set them apart all right thank you any other evaluation committee have any topics for the uh for the vendors to discuss luis velez i would like them to describe all the intent to provide design and construction documents that will help avoid claims incremental agreements and delays in the construction process thank you any other evaluation committee member the evaluation committee establishes the presentation length this does not include the unlimited question and answer period is there any discussion regarding the presentation length i suggest 15 i think 10. i think 15. i was going to say 20. are we good with that may i have a motion from the evaluation committee luis velez i would like to make a motion to set the length of presentation at 15 minutes may i have a second matt harold second all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously as established each vendor will have 15 minutes for their presentation followed by an unlimited question and answer session all vendors will have up to five minutes to set up for their presentation in the team's meeting at this time purchasing will use a random list generator to determine the presentation order this can be viewed on the screen the order of vendors presentation is cdm smith incorporated the first presenter second cts engineering incorporated three marlin engineering incorporated four rsnh incorporated and five matrix engineering incorporated committee members is there any other business that needs to be discussed today i would like to thank all the vendors that responded to this solicitation we appreciate your time and interest in working with broward county and again purchasing apologizes for the delay in starting the meeting at this time it is 5 10 pm this evaluation committee meeting is adjourned thank you