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Regular City Council Meeting Monday,May 12, 2014 Page 28 tion. Councilmember McGehee opined that the other criteria was skewed in ad- dition to the interview process; and submitted that, now that the weather was bet- ter and materials available, she would yield to Councilmember Willmus if the package was rebid and Stantec not shut out of that process. Councilmember McGehee opined that it was just an unfortunate circumstance with the additional snow cover compounded by Stantec having previous knowledge of all the sites. At the request of Mayor Roe, Mr. Brokke confirmed that Stantec had helped vol- unteers removing Buckthorn at Reservoir Woods, verifying that they had the ex- pertise required in this package. Mayor Roe stated that he found no issues from his perspective with the bidding process, which had been vetted through the City Attorney, opining that weather was not a factor; and everyone had the opportunity to provide value added com- ponents even more stellar than obtaining grants. In the overall process, Mayor Roe opined that Stantec came out the clear leader, and reiterated that he saw no issues with the process. At the request of Councilmember Laliberte, City Attorney Gaughan reviewed his non-decision-making role in reviewing this process. Mr. Gaughan advised that he provided an opinion to staff in general perspective as to whether a consultant could bid on actual work, with his general advice most centrally focused on low bid environments. While this was a best value procurement process providing significant line evaluation components mitigating potential exposure, Mr. Gaughan opined that all exposure would never be eliminated on that point. With the best value procurement not widely used yet in the State of MN by municipali- ties, Mr. Gaughan noted that this provided little in the way of definitive advice on potential exposure for the City. Councilmember Laliberte questioned, if the process was rebid with the same players, whether the City's liability exposure would be the same as it is today. City Attorney Gaughan opined that, whether it was the same or not, from what he heard, the potential appearance of vice is that one proposer had more exposure to properties without snow cover, when serving as a resource person for the City. If that was the concern for any potential bias, Mr. Gaughan opined that it made sense that there would be less exposure if the package was rebid. Councilmember Etten noted that whether or not a park was snow covered, or if you had exposure at that park during removal of Buckthorn in a section of the park, it remained for consideration that much of these areas are available via aeri- al photos taken during the summer allowing access into spaces and other areas when they were not snow covered. Using Evergreen Park as an example, Coun- cilmember Etten noted that it was a grass field, and you didn't need to see the ac-