City council has postponed the award of a $1.47-million design contract over questions of why the company with the low bid was disqualified after making the first cut.

Council voted at its meeting Tuesday to put off consideration of the contract award for two weeks to give city administration an opportunity to provide additional information.

City administration is recommending Kobayshi & Zedda Architects be awarded the contract to design the addition to city hall and oversee the construction project, which includes a major retrofit to increase energy efficiency.

The total project budget is $20.8 million, with $16 million coming from federal and Yukon government grants.

Most of the council members said Tuesday they did not have a problem putting off the decision by two weeks to gather additional information, but they want to see the project go ahead this spring.

Others indicated there are some questions that need to be answered before they can vote on the contract award.

Coun. Laura Cabott said she has spoken to people in the architectural industry who did not bid on the work, and even they’re raising questions.

Over the Easter weekend, she had more discussions, she said.

Cabott noted the low bid for the design and construction supervision was $400,000 below the bid submitted by Kobayshi & Zedda.

The technical package submitted by the low bidder was evaluated and approved, and it was only after the second stage, when the pricing envelope was opened, that the company was disqualified, she pointed out.

“For me right now, there are too many questions unanswered, so I cannot support it,” Cabott told her colleagues.

Councillors Dan Boyd and Samson Hartland expressed similar reservations.

Councillors Jocelyn Curteanu and Steve Roddick indicated while they would support deferring the vote for two weeks, they could see nothing wrong with the evaluation process that ultimately disqualified the low bidder.

Council was told by administration the design award needs to happen this spring if the city hopes to complete its city hall project by March 31, 2023.

The 2023 deadline is set out in the funding arrangements with the federal and Yukon governments.

It was explained to council at last week’s meeting that four companies submitted bids by the Feb. 20 deadline for the request for proposals.

Two were found to be non-compliant after the first stage – the technical evaluation.

While two moved onto the pricing stage, the evaluation committee found the low bidder to be non-compliant.

“Of the four proposals received, two did not meet the minimum technical threshold required to continue to stage two of the evaluation process,” reads the administrative report prepared for council last week.

“A third proposal was deemed non-compliant by the evaluation committee; and even if the bid had been found to be compliant, the evaluation committee would have exercised its right to reject the bid because of the committee’s concerns about the bidder’s ability to perform the work due to various deficiencies in the bid.”

Council was told the evaluation committee’s conclusion was reviewed and supported by the city’s legal team.

Cabott suggested that perhaps Kobayshi & Zedda should not have even been allowed to bid, since the firm had been retained to come up with a conceptual design and an estimated construction cost on which the request for proposals was based.

Perhaps there should have been an independent party retained to provide an independent evaluation of the bids, she suggested.

The city hall project is part of the city’s reorganization that began with the construction of the new operations building off Range Road and the construction of the new fire hall on Black Street.

Many of the city staff working in the old and tired Municipal Services Building on Fourth Avenue will be relocated to the operations building while others will move into the new and renovated city hall when it’s complete.

Once the new fire hall is complete, the old fire hall beside city hall will be demolished to accommodate the new addition. The addition will include an indoor transit transfer station complete with public washrooms.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, council chambers have been closed to the public.

Mayor Dan Curtis was the only member of council in chambers for Tuesday’s meeting. The six councillors participated by phone.

Only senior city staff are attending the meetings in council chambers.