GOTHAM CITY BUYS FIRE ENGINES

Mayor Harold Goodfellow of Gotham City is faced with a touchy situation involving a city hall dispute between his newly appointed city supply manager, Ed Frisby, and Gotham City's venerable fire chief, Willard Clark.

It all started soon after Mayor Goodfellow hired Frisby following a favoritism scandal linked to the purchases of the previous city supply manager. To prevent a recurrence of the problem, the mayor gave Frisby instructions to set up a standards committee and gave the new city supply manager full backing in enlisting assistance from other city employees.

In accordance with the mayor's instructions, Frisby formed a committee consisting of a fire department representative selected by Chief Clark, an engineer from the public works department, a woman from the finance department, and himself. The group began working on the high-value purchases, and the first on the agenda was the purchase of ten new fire pumping engines and five extension ladder trucks, involving an estimated expenditure of approximately $600,000 for the pumpers and another $1 million for the ladder trucks.

Frisby got together with the standards committee and representatives of firefighting equipment suppliers. Through these meetings, the committee prepared open specifications to which all agreed.

Bids were received, opened publicly, and then analyzed. The supply manager, in accordance with the unanimous findings of the committee, recommended that the city accept the lowest bid that met the minimum specifications in all respects. There was considerable spread between the lowest and the next-to-lowest bids.

Then the trouble began. Shortly after making this recommendation, supply manager Frisby learned that Chief Clark had sent a resolution to the city council recommending rejection of all the bids and award of the contract to another higher priced supplier. Clark told City Council that he would not be responsible for fighting fires unless his selection of equipment was approved by the council.

The mayor called Frisby. "Look, Ed," he said, "I'm in the middle of this fire equipment dispute. I think you're right in this hassle, and I want to support your work on the standards committee. But Chief Clark is a respected old-timer around here, and I think he's got some of the city council members on his side. Do you have any ideas on how to settle this difficulty and keep the chief happy too?"

1. What should Frisby tell the mayor?
2. How should the city supply manager help solve the fire equipment dispute to the satisfaction of the fire chief and the city council?