Agenda Packets - 1997/04/07 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Approximately a week later, I received a call from Mr. Redpath who indicated that from this point forward, all contact about the software was to be through him. He proceeded to treat me in a very demeaning and unprofessional manner and indicated that we had a signed contract and if III we did not use the software, they did not really care. Since we did not have a copy of the signed contract, I requested that he forward a copy to us for our review. Upon review of the City Council Resolution 4940 and the actual contract, Bob Long indicated that the contract was riot valid because the resolution did not authorize the purchase and the mayor did not sign the contract as are required by City Ordinances. On December 31st, I contacted Mr. Tauges with this information, who requested that I forward something to him in writing, which I did. I did not hear from him for several weeks, and as such, I called him and we set up a meeting (January 15th), during which Mr. Redpath and himself attended; at the conclusion of the meeting,they requested to talk to Mr. Long who was out of the office but was left a message to contact Tauges Redpath. Over the next week or two, they apparently traded telephone messages and apparently on January 23rd, Mr. Long talked to Mr. Redpath. After this, the City Administrator set up a meeting with Tauges Redpath to attempt to resolve this issue; the meeting was postponed several times by Mr. Tauges but was finally set for February 1 lth with Chuck, myself, and Mssgs. Tauges & Redpath. Prior to this meeting, Tauges Redpath contacted several City Councilors to discuss the situation with them. At the meeting, Mr. Tauges indicated that they would like to resolve the issue as soon as possible and also indicated that they had not spent much time on this issue. The issue of an invalid contract was discussed and Mr. Tauges indicated that he felt that it was a minor technicality; when questioned 410 about how as our auditor he would view it, he indicated that he was not sure but that it may be a reportable finding, however, since he was not an attorney he could not address whether or not the contract was valid or not. However, when the issue of providing advise about the need to go out for formal bids for account software was discussed, he indicated that he was very comfortable that it did not need to be (which was in conflict with discussions I had had with the New Ulm City attorney and one at the State Auditors office). During the meeting they indicated that if the City felt that it would go out for new bids for accounting software, they would not submit a bid; also, they indicated that they would want to enter into an agreement to terminate the contract but expected payment for the training provided but that they would return the original amount of the software. In general, while the meeting started out good, the tone ended on a negative note. Chuck was out of the office for the remainder of the month, so nothing was resolved. During this time, however, Mr. Tauges called and indicated that if the issue was not resolved, he did not feel that their firm could conduct the City's audit because of a lack of independence. In the past when questioned about a lack of independence, he had indicated that since the auditing firm and the software firm were two separate firms,there was not any independence problem. Now, however, he indicated that since there is common ownership and since there were unpaid bills for software training, he felt that there was a potential independence problem. After Chuck returned, we discussed how we should proceed. I indicated that I felt that we should have went through a formal bid procedure originally and since our attorney indicated that we did 0 not have a binding contract that the Tauges contract should be undone and that we should start over. I was disappointed however, that Tauges had indicated that they would not submit a bid. As such, I contacted Mr. Tauges, informed him of our decision and he indicated that he would