Good afternoon, everyone. Please confirm that you can hear me, please. Yes, I can hear you. Okay, thank you. Good afternoon once again. I am Sonia Lovett, Senior Purchasing Manager and the Meeting Facilitator. I would like to call to order this initial evaluation committee meeting for request for proposals RFP number TRN-2131774P1. Consulting services for bus rapid transit activities for the Broward County Transportation Department. The time is now 1.02 p.m. on September 15, 2026. This meeting is being held through Microsoft Teams. Representatives from the county are physically here in Room 430 of the Governmental Center Building East, located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or virtually through Teams. Attendees, please mute your microphones on your devices to limit background noise. This is a public meeting and is being recorded by Broward County. The video recording will act as the official recording of the meeting. The recording will be made available on the Purchasing Division website under the RLI slash RFP repository. Information reviewed by the Evaluation Committee as part of the evaluation process will also be posted on the repository. This meeting has been publicly noticed. The purpose of the meeting is to determine the responsiveness and responsibility of the proposing vendors. All 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 solicitation deadline, 2 p.m. on July 17, 2026, eight proposals were received. I ask that you please mute your microphones. Meaning, attendance is recorded in the following ways. The Purchasing Division will record attendance of county staff physically here in Room GC 430. All virtual attendees, including county staff, please click on the link or scan the QR code that is currently listed in the Teams chat section to complete the sign-in sheet. For attendees that cannot access the link or QR code in the Teams chat, email the purchasing agent, Jermaine Pinnock, at J-P-I-N-N-O-C-K, 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 project staff, Jermaine Pinnock, Purchasing Division, Gia Bien, Project Manager, Transportation Department, Javia Navas, Sarah Cohen, and Benjamin Salzillo, County Attorney's Office, Colleen Pinal, Risk Management Division. We have a quorum present with the following Evaluation Committee members. Committee members, please stay present after your name is called. Razum Awad, Director, Traffic Engineering Division, Public Works and Environmental Services Department.
Present.
Matthew D'Antonio, Director, Information Technology Division, Transportation Department.
Present.
Abhishek Dayal, Assistant Director, Capital Delivery and Infrastructure Division, Transportation Department.
Present.
Scott Thurman, Engineering Unit Supervisor, Highway Construction and Engineering Division, Public Works and Environmental Services Department.
Present.
William Lee Willis, Assistant Director, Safety and Security Division, Transportation Department.
Present.
Thank you, everyone. It is the Evaluation Committee's responsibility to review the vendor submittals, to ensure solicitation requirements are met, and to evaluate the submittals and 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. 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. The cone of silence has been in effect since the solicitation's advertisement. Vendors are prohibited from discussing this solicitation with the commissioner's 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 and or his designee. All vendors may communicate with designated representatives from the Office of Economic and Small Business Development at any time regarding the solicitation's small business enterprise or county business enterprise participation. The summary of vendor rights regarding Broward County competitive solicitations was issued in the solicitation. Broward County will be utilizing a consensus approach to provide a summarized group consensus evaluation score at the final Evaluation Committee meeting. At this time, the purchasing agent will report the findings on the responsiveness and responsibility and identify if any exceptions were taken to the county's terms and conditions. Thank you.
Proposals were received from the following vendors. Arcadis U.S. Inc. doing business as Arcadis, EXP U.S. Services Inc., HDR Engineering Inc., HNTB Corporation, Influx Media Inc., RS&H Inc., The Caradena Group Inc., and WSP USA Inc. The solicitation had three responsiveness requirements involving compliance. One, criminal history screening practices certification. Two, federal transit administration or FTA requirements. Three, lobbyist registration certification. All vendors were found responsive to all the responsiveness requirements by the purchasing division. The solicitation had five areas of responsibility requirements. One, affiliated entities of the principal. Two, financial information or financial ability. Three, insurance requirements. Four, professional engineering license and FDOT prequalification requirements. And five, litigation history. Seven of eight vendors provided the required documents for the Evaluation Committee's review of responsibility. The following compliance concerns were identified. Influx Media Inc. did not comply with the insurance requirements of the solicitation. Referred to the insurance review memorandum for additional information. Influx Media Inc. did not provide the required license and FDOT prequalification information as stated in the RFP. Referred to the Director of Purchasing Memorandum for additional information. The solicitation required vendors to state whether they accept Borough County's standard terms and conditions or, if they do not accept them, to identify the agreement provisions and vendors' proposed changes. Five of eight vendors accepted the county's standard terms and conditions without exceptions. The following vendors took exceptions to the county's standard terms and conditions. The specific exceptions taken by these vendors are identified in each submittal and will be addressed prior to presentation 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.
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? Hearing none, may I have a motion with respect to the responsiveness of vendor submittals.
I would like to make a motion to find all vendors to be responsive to the solicitation's responsiveness criteria.
Can you repeat the motion and state your name, please?
Abhishek Dayal, I would like to make a motion to find all vendors as responsive to the solicitation's responsiveness criteria.
Thank you. May I have a second?
Abhishek Dayal, I second that motion.
All in favor, say aye. Aye.
Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next order of business is to determine the responsibility of the vendors as defined in 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.
Ross Amawad, I would like to make a motion to find Influx Media, Inc. as non-responsible to the solicitation's responsibility requirements. Thank you. May I have a second?
Second.
State your name, please.
Abhishek Dayal.
All in favor, say 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?
Ross Amawad, I would like to make a motion to find Arcadis U.S. Inc., EXP U.S. Services, Inc., HDR Engineering, Inc., HNTB Corporation, RSNH, Inc., The Corradino Group, Inc., WSP USA, Inc. As both responsive and responsible to the solicitation's requirements.
Thank you. May I have a second?
Matt D'Angonio with a second.
All in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The Director of Purchasing recommends shortlisting in accordance with the Procurement Code Section 2142. The Evaluation Committee may, one, shortlist vendors and then score and rank only the shortlisted vendors, or two, score and rank all responses. In accordance with Procurement Code Section 2144, Procedures for CCNA Services states that the Evaluation Committee shall establish a shortlist of vendors for further consideration of award of the solicitation, unless the Director of Purchasing determines that shortlisting would not be in the best interest of the county. Is there any discussion regarding shortlisting? Hearing none. May I have a motion with regards to the shortlisting of vendors?
Abhishek Dayal, I would like to make a motion to shortlist all seven vendors who were deemed to be responsive and responsible to the final Evaluation Committee meeting for presentations and ranking.
One moment before we move forward. We have, this is a CCNA procurement, and we're required to shortlist to four, at least four. Yeah, three or four.
We will be shortlist, we would be selecting multiple vendors for this solicitation.
Understood.
So I think the plan was to have at least three awards being made. So is the recommendation to have four, at least?
One moment. Go ahead.
So unless the director... Take your name. Yeah, Javier Navas, Assistant County Attorney. So since this is a CCNA, unless if the Director of Purchasing recommends not to shortlist, then the EC must shortlist, so we must go from five at least to four. You could go down to three, no less than three. So the EC must, by code, at least keep three, at most four of the vendors.
This is Javier with BCT. I'm the PM for this solicitation. Can I please ask for clarification on the CCNA terms that you're referring to?
Yeah, no problem. It's in the procurement code. I'll pull it up in just a second. But essentially, unless if the Director of Purchasing recommends not to shortlist, then the EC must shortlist. I'll pull it up in a second and read it.
Yes, please. Thank you.
Jia, can I clarify your question, what you want clarification on?
So I'm asking for the clarification of specific terms where it referenced that this has to be shortlisted to three or four vendors.
Thank you.
In 2144, subsection B of the Code of Ordinances, so that's in the Administrative Code, it states, Evaluation Committee shall establish a shortlist of vendors for further consideration of award of the solicitation unless the Director of Purchasing determines that shortlisting would not be in the best interest of the county. And Sonia, that's correct, the Director of Purchasing did not recommend, did not find that shortlisting would not be in the best interest of the county, correct?
Yeah.
So the evaluation must, that's the language from the Administrative Code.
Is it required that it has to be shortlisted to three or four, or can it be more than five?
So if it's all five, then we're not shortlisting, right, in the true sense of the term. That term isn't defined in the Administrative Code, but shortlisting would be to get, right now we have five, we need to go down to at least four. And the Florida Statutes is what requires us to have at least three when we shortlist CCNAs. So that's why it's either three or four.
Abishak Dayal, quick question. We received a total of eight proposals. So there are eight vendors that have submitted their proposals, and we have already deemed seven to be responsive and responsible. So essentially we have shortlisted down to seven, right? Was that not meeting the requirements?
No. So the determination of responsibility and responsiveness is not a mechanism for shortlisting. That is just a determination on who met the requirements of the solicitation. Once that has been completed, then you go through the shortlisting process, which is where we are now.
Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Just one more question then. In terms of the number of vendors to be shortlisted, there's no recommendation from the Director of Purchasing on the actual number that should be shortlisted. Is there?
No. The Director of Purchasing would have recommended that shortlisting did not apply to the solicitation, not necessarily the number. So the number is determined by our procurement code and also the Florida statute that say that if a solicitation is CCNA, then we must shortlist no more than three, no more than four.
Yeah, we have to have at least three.
At least three.
At least a minimum of three. Yes. So it's not no more than three or four. So it's a minimum of three.
Correct.
Okay. So that means if we have seven that are deemed to be responsive and responsible, then it could be shortlisted to six? I'm just trying to. Correct. Yeah. Okay.
In that hypothetical, yeah.
Hypothetically.
Thank you. Yeah. So if we had seven total, they could go down to six. But here we only have five. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yes, correct. So we could bring it down to six, six, five, four, yeah, or three.
Thank you.
Is there any further clarification needed?
No. In that case, I'd like to amend my motion.
Okay. Restate your motion, please.
Abhishek Dayal, I would like to make a motion to shortlist six vendors to move forward to the final evaluation committee meeting for presentations and ranking.
May I have a second?
Ante Antonio, second.
All in favor, say aye.
Aye. Aye. Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. The evaluation committee will now shortlist the vendors. The evaluation committee members were emailed a ballot link to select the vendors to shortlist. The number of vendors to shortlist is six. 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 the tally, I will reconvene the meeting and purchasing will read the shortlisting results. Are there any questions? Committee members, you may begin shortlisting. The purchasing division will notify me when they have received all ballots and are ready to tabulate. Do you have a question? Please state your name.
Matt D'Antonio. So on the ballot, it looks like it's limited to four at this time. It's strange.
Okay. It's been updated.
Well, refreshed. Thank you.
Yes. Refresh. Thank you. Good afternoon once again. The shortlist ballots have been submitted and we will now take a recess. The time is now 1.28 p.m. We are now in recess. Good afternoon. Excuse me. So we do have a tie and we will be resubmitting for us to break the tie. So we will be sending that back out to the EC members and so that you can just select one vendor out of the remaining two to move forward. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon once again, everyone. I would like to reconvene this meeting. The time is now 1.33 p.m. Purchasing. We'll announce the results.
After applying a re-vote, the shortlisted vendors are as follows. EXP U.S. Services, Inc., HDR Engineering, Inc., HNTB Corporation, RS and H, Inc., the Caradena Group, Inc., and WSP USA, Inc., and WSP USA, Inc.
Thank you.
Thank you.
May I have a motion to accept the named vendors as those shortlisted?
Abhishek Tayal, I would like to make a motion to accept the named vendors to proceed to final evaluation and ranking.
May I have a second?
Ross and Mawad, I second the motion.
All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. The final evaluation committee meeting will be held on Tuesday, October the 13th, 2026 at 10 a.m., and will include vendor presentations. The evaluation committee establishes the length of presentations. This time does not include the unlimited question and answer period. Is there any discussion regarding the presentation length? May I have a motion to set the presentation length?
Abhishek Tayal, I would like to make a motion to set the length of a presentation at 15 minutes.
May I have a second?
Lee Willis would like to second that motion.
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, the purchasing agent will use a random list generator to determine the order of presentations. This will be viewed on the screen.
The presentation order is as follows. First presenter, EXP, U.S. Services, Inc., Second, RS&H, Inc., Third, WSP, USA, Inc., Fourth, HDR, Engineering, Inc., Fifth, HNTB Corporation, and Sixth, the Corradina Group, Inc. Thank you.
Thank you. Committee members, is there any other business that needs to be discussed today? No? I would like to thank all the vendors that responded to this solicitation. We appreciate your time and interest in working with the Broward County and also want to thank all the Evaluation Committee members for your time today. The time is now 1.38 p.m. This initial Evaluation Committee meeting is now adjourned. Thank you very much.