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REQUEST TO EXERCISE THE CONTRACT ONE (1) YEAR EXTENSION OPTION WITH RUSSO HARDWARE, INC. FOR LANDSCAPE MOWERS DISTRICTWIDE: PURCHASE OR LEASE, MAINTENANCE AND REPAIRS
SPECIFICATION NO. P-22012
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To: The Honorable Board of Commissioners of the Chicago Park District
I. Initial Award Information
Award Date: Spec. No. P-22012 was awarded on February 15, 2023 by the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners for the Department of Cultural and Natural Resources to Russo Hardware, Inc. for the purchase or lease, maintenance and repair of landscape mowers.
Contractor: Russo Hardware, Inc.
Company Type: Business Corporation
Contract Amount: $ 1,000,000
Scope of Services: The Chicago Park District (“CPD”) invited experienced firms to submit their proposals for Landscape Mowers District-Wide: Purchase or Lease, Maintenance and Repairs on an as-needed basis. The CPD was seeking the most value with this specification and requested prices to purchase, lease, lease with the option to buy, or lease to own the landscape mowers (“mowers”). Award was determined on the quality and variety of mowers, prices proposed, and which option was in the best interest of the CPD.
The awardee(s) shall provide all required equipment, manufacturers’ warranties, operations manuals, training materials, supervise all required training; as well as, transportation, vehicles, and any/all other services necessary to purchase or lease and to service, maintain and repair mowers in accordance with the terms and conditions of this specification. Additionally, the awardee will provide services of the highest and best quality that are competitively priced and delivered in a timely manner. Finally, the awardee must have experience and have an established, credible reputation for servicing large volume equipment to location customers on a just-in-time basis.
The awardee(s) shall be responsible to include and provide, or contract for the maintenance and repair of the mowers for the duration of the agreement. Accordingly, the awardee shall provide prompt maintenance service and shall contract for or have existing maintenance facilities with sufficient parts inventory and trained technicians experienced in providing service on the proposed mowers. Contractor shall pick up all equipment or do repairs in the field. Alternately, the CPD may choose to pick up, transport, and/or deliver equipment as necessary for repairs and maintenance throughout the life of this contract.
The CPD does not have facilities to accommodate winter storage of the mowers. Consequently, the awardee must have a storage facility of no less than 20,000sf to store the mowers and other CPD equipment throughout the year. The storage facility must be indoors and heated and able to accommodate over 200 mowers and other CPD equipment such as salt spreaders, and snow blowers. Also, the storage facility must be located within the six county area and no more than 50 miles from the limits of the City of Chicago. Additionally, the CPD will have unlimited and unrestricted access to the storage facility at all times. Lastly, the awardee will pick-up the mowers from the CPD and transport them to its facility or facilities at the end of each season and deliver the mowers to the CPD at the start of each season as directed by the CPD. The CPD reserves the right to pick up and deliver its equipment to the storage site at any time.
Contract Period: Two (2) year initial term with three (3) additional one (1) year extension options. Contract execution date of March 27, 2023 and expiration of March 27, 2025.
Contract Amount: Russo Hardware, Inc: Not to exceed $1 million for the initial contract term. If the extension options are exercised, funding shall be based upon annual appropriations. This is a DUR contract (depends upon requirements). Expenditures for services under each extension term will be authorized by annual appropriation and subject to each year’s budget. DUR contract.
Authorization: Authorize the General Counsel to include other relevant terms and conditions in the written Agreement. Authorize the General Superintendent to execute the Agreement and the Secretary to attest as to the signing of the Agreement and keep an original copy of the Agreement on file.
II. Current Expenditures: (APRIL 2023 - DECEMBER 2024)
Contractor: Russo Hardware, Inc.
9525 W. Irving Park Rd.
Schiller Park, IL 60176
Amount: Purchase Orders Issued to date - $153,000.00
III. Current MBE/WBE Compliance
Compliance
Goals: The opportunity for direct and indirect M/WBE spending are limited for this commodity purchase.
The Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise(MBE/WBE) participation for this contract, for rental of storage space only, is as follows:
MBE: 14.2% WBE: 0.0%
IV. Explanation of Recommendation
Russo Hardware, Inc. is an authorized dealer for Toro lawnmowers. Although the Park District does have a limited number of Toro machines in our fleet, we did not have the need to purchase any new Toro mowers during the initial term of this contract. In addition, maintenance and repair of the existing Toro mowers in our Fleet is covered under another contract. As a result, the Park District only made use of the secure storage component of the scope for this contract during the initial term. The storage facility is located close to city limits, which allows our staff to pick up and drop off equipment without spending a great deal of time on travel.
Due to the limited use of this contract in the initial term, the opportunities for MBE and WBE participation that were outlined in the original proposal were not available to the contractor, and the compliance levels were below the goal of 25% MBE participation and 5% WBE participation.
Despite only partially meeting the compliance goals, the Department of Cultural and Natural Resources recommends authorization of the extension option in order to ensure continuous service for storage of our equipment. We also recommend preserving the ability to purchase new Toro mowers in the future should the need arise to replace these machines. During the extension year, DCNR will work with the Purchasing Department and with the vendor to see if additional opportunities for MBE and WBE participation can be identified. We will also explore options for a new contract that will meet our standard goals if compliance cannot be improved.