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Council approves Crawford Engineering agreement after debate on RFP and transparency
Summary
After members raised procurement and transparency concerns, the Independence City Council voted to approve a revised engineering-services agreement with Crawford Engineering & Surveying for the 2026 street rehabilitation project, with the contractor lowering the not-to-exceed cap to $100,000.
The Independence City Council on Sept. 8 approved an engineering-services agreement with Crawford Engineering & Surveying, Inc. for the city’s 2026 street rehabilitation project after a short but substantive debate about procurement transparency.
Council members questioned whether the city should reject Crawford’s proposal and run a request-for-proposals (RFP) process for a project with an anticipated not-to-exceed engineering-services cap that could exceed $100,000. Council members asked whether the process provided sufficient competitive bidding and whether residents’ interests were best served by an RFP.
Mark Crawford, representing Crawford Engineering and Surveying, told the council the firm has handled similar street-rehab work for the city over several years and that the higher not-to-exceed figure reflected a standard maximum for design and construction administration. Crawford said the firm typically does not reach that maximum and that he did not wish to cause the council “any heartburn,” offering to reduce the not-to-exceed cap to $100,000. "I don't want to cause any trouble. I don't want to cause any heartburn ... we're fine with moving it back down to the 100,000," he said.
Following that offer the council took a roll-call vote to accept the revised proposal and authorized the city to execute the agreement. The council noted Crawford’s prior performance for the city and that the $100,000 cap was consistent with the project budget.
The mayor and staff also said they would continue evaluating procurement transparency on future major contracts and consider broader RFP practices where appropriate. The contract approval includes a directive for Public Works to provide periodic project updates to the council.
