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Boof

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  1. What has been everyone's experience in dealing with companies demanding we sign their normal commercial maintenance or service agreements or not providing service. I am referring to agreements for cell phone, blackberry and internet service mainly but some maintenance contracts on things like copier service and hotels as well. I was always told we were not to sign such agreements but the companies are becoming more demanding as time goes on. If they expect John Q Public to sign it before they get service, why should we not sign it? I am thinking it should be signed and attached to the SF 1449 that has our terms and thier signature. What has everyone else been doing on this issue?
  2. I had this issue come up a couple of years ago. A HUBZONE protested a small business set aside and I cancelled the solicitation and reissued as HUBZONE setaside based on the guidance for my legal advisor. It did not take GAO to tell us the FAR says it trumps 8a or other small business. It would seem to me that about 80% of all solictations should be initially restricted to hubzone. There are so many HUBZONE firms that almost anything in normal usage is available from two or more. Unless advertised how can any CO make the determination that they do not exist. If every CO restricted most of their solicitations properly, there would be such cry from other businesses that Congress would change the law. Just look at the cry about Alaskan Native Corporations now. While GSA FSS is a way out for us normal COs I have never understood how GSA can award FSS without following all the same rules the rest of us go by.
  3. Ask the CO as only he/she knows what they were thinking when they wrote it. And sometimes they don't know what they meant either.
  4. Yes but what would be a reasonable basis? From experience I cannot think of any. I am a CO for Department of State doing overseas construction. My office is located overseas. We have a DOSAR waiver from FEDBIZOPPs for under $5M. However, we are expected to use full and open on all construction not restricted by law or treaty (I haven't seen one yet). We use our own web site for advertising and expect the Post Facility managers to do market research and provide suggested firms for us to mail solicitations. On any given project we will have local companies, companies from neighboring countries and U.S. firms all competing even down to projects as small as $300K. We do not get involved in permits and licensing issues. The solication says the offeror must have permission to work in the country by the time of award. If he can't produce the proof that is his problem and we go to the next best offer (and yes that comes up often and we even had to T4D one mistake we made). We have the post discuss the permitting at the site visit/prepropsal conferences so they are all on notice. If we do any restrictions it must be supported by J&A IAW FAR part 6. Some of our Bureaus have authority from Congress to restrict for polictical and other considerations. This is also supported by documentation on a case by case basis. This authority is used infrequently, is used for good reasons and is not abused in my opinion. So, I do not think there is a blanket authority to limit competition to local companies but should be supported by J&A on a case by case basis. P.S. It appears our webite is becoming so well known by U.S. companies that we might as well advertise on FEDBIZOPPs. Being overseas we do not have to consider small business and get no credit if we did so the competition is truely full and open and the firms as well as our customers really like that.
  5. I agree with the decision especially since the CO was given notice by the contractor of the issue. However, this is another "Gotcha" that makes everyone want to get out of the contracting field. In 11 years I have never thought to make sure we allowed email in schedule of the IDIQ contracts of which I have awarded many. It will on the top of my mind now of course.
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