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Supervisors split on official advertising: Chronicle removed from six-month rotation, outreach list continued
Summary
A dispute over whether the San Francisco Chronicle missed bid deadlines led the Board of Supervisors to amend a proposed designation of official city newspapers, removing the Chronicle from a split contract and continuing a related outreach-media item for further review.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors amended and approved a resolution designating the city's official newspapers for fiscal year 2016-17, removing the San Francisco Chronicle from a planned six-month split after staff said the Chronicle's bid was late and therefore nonresponsive.
The board's vote followed a lengthy debate in which supervisors and Office of Contract Administration (OCA) staff described the competitive solicitation process and whether failure to file a timely bid should be excused. The amendment to the original committee report passed 6-4; the board then approved the item as amended.
Supervisor Aaron Peskin opposed rewarding a vendor that missed the published deadline, saying the board should not set a precedent of excusing late bids. OCA assistant director Kofo Domingo told the board the Chronicle's bid was considered nonresponsive because it arrived after the deadline, and that the solicitation had been posted on the city website and emailed to historical vendor addresses.
Diane Fitzgibbon, a San Francisco Chronicle representative, told the board the Chronicle did not receive the bid email because the vendor outreach message was formatted incorrectly in the copy she received; she said the Chronicle later submitted its bid and requested to be considered. Fitzgibbon said the Chronicle had met deadlines in prior years and that an internal formatting issue prevented receipt of the OCA message.
Supervisor Julie Christensen (referred to in the transcript as Supervisor Weiner) and others argued for broader dissemination of official notices and urged the board to be inclusive; Supervisor Mark Farrell and Supervisor London Breed (president) said the Chronicle and the Examiner each have broad citywide reaches and that eliminating either would reduce notice to some audiences. Others said the solicitation process needs improvement, particularly for small community publications.
Item 20, a related package to designate outreach periodicals for various communities, was continued to the June 28 meeting to allow additional review and possible amendments. OCA reported it had contacted 49 local newspapers and received 10 bids; several publications self-certified outreach categories and two provided third-party audited circulation data. Supervisors asked OCA to report back on outreach methodology and circulation verification.
The board adopted item 19 as amended (removing the Chronicle from the split recommendation) and continued item 20 for further consideration.
