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Board committee forwards Examiner designation, adds Chronicle as co-recipient for official advertising
Summary
The Budget & Finance Committee advanced a resolution designating The Examiner as the city's official advertising paper for fiscal year 2013'14 but amended the recommendation to add The San Francisco Chronicle and send the item to the full Board. Committee members said adding the Chronicle would maximize notice reach; outreach periodical selections will be handled separately.
Supervisor Mark Farrell chaired the Budget & Finance Committee on June 19 as members considered two purchasing resolutions to designate official and outreach newspapers for fiscal year 2013'14.
Bill Jones of the Office of Contract Administration told the committee the procurement received two bids: The Examiner (responsive, highest score) and The Chronicle (deemed nonresponsive to the requirement that printing occur in the city). Purchasing recommended the Examiner as the responsive bidder, noting an estimated contract value of about $228,000 (approximately $48,000 of that for the Clerk of the Board). For outreach periodicals, Purchasing recommended a slate of community and neighborhood papers with an estimated outreach budget of about $22,000.
Supervisors pressed staff about language coverage and whether smaller community papers were able to participate. Purchasing said staff had sent bid solicitations to more than 50 periodicals and held pre-bid conferences but that the administrative code sets minimum qualifications (for example, weekly publication and printed in the city). Deputy City Attorney John Givner confirmed the Board has the discretion to include nonresponsive bidders by amending the resolution.
During public comment, Diane Fiscibbon of The San Francisco Chronicle urged the Board to award Type I and Type II advertising to the Chronicle and sfgate.com, citing the Chronicle's local reach and audience metrics.
After discussion, Supervisor Scott Wiener and others moved to amend item 1 to add The San Francisco Chronicle to the award. The committee approved that amendment and recommended item 1 as amended to the full Board; item 2 (outreach periodicals) was recommended without amendments and will be reviewed further at the full Board, with supervisors and Clerk's staff working on potential additions to better cover language and neighborhood outreach.
Next procedural step: the committee's recommendations (item 1 as amended and item 2 as recommended) will be considered by the full Board of Supervisors at their forthcoming meeting.
