In defense of my profession - proposals are hard

Now I cannot share war stories from the proposals that I write for my own company, because all of the proposals that I write are perfekt and of the highest qualtiy. However, I can certainly share war stories about the proposals that other companies write.

This happens to be a local one, from my home city of Ontario, California. It seems that the city solicited bids for some Federally-funded traffic light projects in the city, but Liset Marquez reports that one of the bidders found a problem with a competitor's bid.

Christopher Morales of San Dimas, who was the second-lowest bidder, wrote to Ontario officials that the low bidder, Bell Gardens-based CT & F, did not follow all of the federal guidelines.

Ontario's city engineer, Louis Abi-younes, talked with representatives of the Federal Highway Administration and determined that there WERE problems with CT & F's bid.

Oh, and there were problems with the bid of the competitor who reported the issue in the first place. Yes, the second-lowest bid also had errors. And it didn't stop there.

Federal Highway Administration staffers also determined that the second- and third-lowest bidders had also incorrectly filled out the forms, Abi-younes said.

The best solution was to reject all the bids, he said.

Let's face it - when multiple bidders have problems with the forms, then the agency has to look at its procedures. Or, in this case, agencies, since both the city of Ontario and the Federal Highway Administration were involved.