El Paso City Council better defines small businesses eligible for extra points when bidding for city contracts

The El Paso City Council better defined the small businesses that will be eligible to receive extra points when bidding for city contracts.

In a special meeting Monday, Council approved recommendations by the Legislative Review Committee to better define local businesses that will meet the criteria. The first tier of businesses that will get the most extra points must be companies that are headquartered in El Paso. Corporate officers must direct and control the business from the El Paso headquarters.

The second tier of local business will receive fewer extra points during the bidding process and will consist of companies that do not have headquarters in El Paso but still employ a minimum of 50 people who reside within El Paso city limits. “If you happen to have quite a bit of employees who live in el paso, your business is here in ep – even though you’re headquartered somewhere else, you still have an economic impact on people here. We’re going to give you a bit of a local preference, not as much but you’re going to get a little bit of a preference as well,” said City Rep. Michiel Noe.

The tier two companies must also have an operational and staffed local office that’s been in El Paso for more than a year. The local office can’t significantly rely on another office outside of El Paso and it can’t be a temporary construction trailer. “They (out of town companies) come in and they set up a trailer on a lot and say ‘we suddenly have an office here.’ That’s not going to work. You’re going to have to be here for a year and you’re going to have to have real property here – lease it or own it – you can’t just set up a trailer out at UTEP or on the base and say hey look we’re local,” said Noe.

The City of El Paso will be awarding nearly half a billion dollars in contracts for quality of life construction projects voters overwhelmingly approved in November 2012. “That’s where we can really recapture those dollars that the local el paso citizen has funded to do and so it’s only right that an el paso business flourish because of that,” said Charles Dodds III, President of Homegrown El Paso.

Council’s goal is to require at least 25% of the value of local contracts be subcontracted to certified local businesses. “It really is one of the most progressive issues out of the city,” said Dodds.