Wednesday, April 9, 2008

City Contracts and Race-Relations in Pensacola

In an opinion piece published in today’s PNJ, Mark O’Brien is right on the money when he talks about how the city should award contracts to businesses that are performing services for them.

O’Brien states: “Government represents all of the people and therefore should make purchases on the basis of the lowest and best bid, not according to race, geography or hometown favoritism.”

I love this approach to awarding city contracts. It saves them money by awarding contracts to businesses who will perform the job in the most efficient and inexpensive manner. This is what the city should do from now on when they're awarding contracts for work.

With this method, race is never a consideration in the awarding process; it would never show favor or slight any race because the awarding of contracts is not based on the color of a person’s skin.

That being said, no matter the color of the contractor’s skin, we should always be vigilant of this process to make sure we don't see city contracts go to businesses that can’t provide a service efficiently and inexpensively.

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