Council directs staff to add lease option to Breakwater fill RFP after solicitation omitted leasing

The city will pause further procurement on the Breakwater fill lot and reissue a request for proposals that explicitly includes a lease-with-option after staff and councilors found the original solicitation lacked a leasing alternative.

The city manager told council the RFP language was limited to purchase and did not clearly give bidders a lease option; she said the original motion on the item discussed both lease and purchase and public comment had included discussion of leasing. “Lease or purchase,” the city manager said, summarizing the intent raised in earlier debate.

The city clerk noted the office had already received a purchase proposal and said the city did not want to disadvantage that proposer by immediately reissuing a purchase-only solicitation. “We received the one that was for purchase, but we don't want to put purchase out again because that would be unfair to them,” the clerk said.

Councilors and staff agreed the purchase RFP should not be reissued as-is. Instead, staff were directed to work out the logistics and return an RFP that includes leasing as an option or a lease-with-option structure; the manager said staff will handle the details unless council objects. A council member confirmed staff do not need additional formal direction to proceed if there are no objections.

Next steps: staff will draft the updated RFP language to include a lease-with-option and pause any purchase-award steps until the revised solicitation is issued and returned to council for review.