Feeling Inspired?
I cannot get over the consulting contract for the Comprehensive Plan update. The Commissioners talk about the desire to save money, but then turn around and spend $560k on a consultant to do the Comp Plan.
I get it. We need to review it before 2027 and submit to the state. That is required. What is not required is a complete overhaul of it. Is what we have outdated? Maybe, but maybe not. As Commissioner Finegan said, "maybe there is nothing wrong with it, we just aren't following it."
Or perhaps there is something wrong with it and we need to adjust it. But can we do it cheaper? We do not know because we did not bid out the contract.
The county took the piggyback approach to this. We "copied" the contract Tarpon Springs has with Inspire. Basically, that allows governments to use the contracts from other governments and get the same services/products they are getting. Since one entity did the procurement process, it satisfies state purchasing laws and allows the agency that wants to piggyback to save time/money from doing their own solicitation.
Pretty cool feature, but I had some questions, so down the research rabbit hole I went.
This post will give you an insight into how I do research for a topic, but it is a bit long.... to summarize it for those that don't want to read my entire thought process... I think this contract violates state law and is not legal. To hire someone for this, it needs to be the RFP/RFQ process.
That said, here we go.
I saw this come up on the agenda and I had a question come to mind.... Why was this not bid out? I thought all government contracts were to be bid out. So that piqued my curiosity and I wanted to learn more about it.
Generally, when I have questions about something, I start with a public records request. I start with general emails... "Please send me the documents submitted to DMB (Division of Management and Budget) related to the Tarpon Springs piggyback contract." A little more nuanced than that, but you get the idea.
That gives me this.
This is the approval form from DMB and the bid tabulation sheets from the Tarpon Springs RFP.
Then I went to Tarpon Springs and did research for the original contract and bid. It was presented on October 15, 2024.
By going piggyback route, the County has to follow the decisions Tarpon Springs came to. What I noticed from Tarpon Springs is that Inspire was not ranked the highest. As I shared earlier this week, Inspire was not the highest ranked firm in this bid proposal. Stantec was. Hmm.
So now, the question comes.. Why did we pick Inspire and how did we even find Inspire?
Back to Public Records.
I wanted to see how Inspire was chosen/selected and asked for email records from Steve Howard and Eric Landon related to this. I figured this would give the insight into how Inspire got invited to give the presentation a couple of weeks ago.
I did not find the original invitation for a teams call, but found confirmation one had occurred.
This is the earliest contact I was given in the records. There is a ZERO percent chance that they just created a teams call with Inspire as the first contact. They had to have met them somewhere or someone made the recommendation to speak with them (more on that in a bit).
In any case, the call obviously went well and from the sounds of the email, staff was interested in hiring Inspire, as Inspire sent the contract from Wildwood that could be used for piggybacking.
That leads to this.
Close to a month later, the purchasing director told everyone that they could not use the Wildwood contract due to it being a continuing services contract that would fall under 287.055. Interesting, but that piqued my interest further.
Inspire then replied with this
Inspire mentions if Wildwood doesn't work, they have plenty of others they could choose from. So clearly, everyone wants to do the piggyback option to avoid the procurement process? Why? Perhaps because they could not guarantee that Inspire would win the bid and apparently they really want to work with Inspire.
Here comes the Tarpon Springs contract.
Inspire acknowledges they spoke with Tarpon Springs and their contract is eligible for piggybacking.
At this point, I know little about piggybacking other than what the Administrative Regulation said. So I went to ChatGPT to help.
Now, ChatGPT is a great resource if you know how to use it. You DO NOT usually take the first thing it gives you. You need to finesse it to focus it on a specific area. Even then, I do not use it to give me answers. I use it to point me in directions to research and use the references it provides.
In this instance, the Purchasing department said that we cannot piggyback the Wildwood contract due to it being continuing services under 287.055. ChatGPT seems to think we cannot piggyback off the Tarpon Springs contract either and cited the same statute Purchasing did (287.055), which is the CCNA statute.
So reading that, it appears 287.055 would apply to engineering, architecture, landscape architecture or registered surveying. Not sure a Comp Plan revamp would fall under this, BUT Wildwood had their contract follow this statute, which is why it is likely was not able to be used, as staff noted.
It would appear to me that since this contract was $560k, it exceeded the threshold under state laws on a continuing services contract under 287.055 which has a limit of $500k. It also could violate the provisions of CCNA in regards to procurement process.
Now, that brings me back to Tarpon Springs. I went back and read the agenda item for when Tarpon Springs voted for the contract award. I found this:
Further, under "Scope of Services" on the Tarpon Springs RFP it says.
ChatGPT gave me this as well.
So it appears to me, the contract for the RFP from Tarpon Springs is also a continuing services contract. Would this be allowed to be piggybacked due to being over $500k? Does this fall under 287.055 as well? Did Purchasing miss this?
Perhaps Tarpon did not bid this under 287.055 and that is why it is allowed to be used. Tarpon Springs does not mention 287.055 in its RFP.
Ok, let's say 287.055 does not apply here since comp planning services are not specifically mentioned and it is not a capital project, although we used Capital Improvement Project (CIP) funds to pay for it. Gray area perhaps?
The point here was to show that Inspire was hand selected by someone and the piggyback route is the only way to ensure they get the contract as a RFP/RFQ process may not award it to them.
Moving on.
County staff and Inspire went back and forth a few times and had a couple more meetings. Inspire was invited to present at the BOCC Growth Workshop in August.
Inspire did make a presentation at that meeting. The next day, this is sent.
So digging further, I found this email from Kinnard to staff.
Here is the interesting thing with this.
There was a meeting on June 10th where Kinnard brought the idea to the board to re-do the comp plan. Here are the minutes from that conversation. Notice what I highlighted.
The direction was to do an RFP/RFQ for this... NOT to piggyback another contract. I do not recall any board discussion at any time to direct staff to hire someone to do the Comp Plan, other than to begin the RFP/RFQ process.
How can Kinnard decide on his own to do a piggyback contract?
In my records request asking for all emails to/from Kinnard to/from staff and Inspire, I see no emails to/from Kinnard at any point discussing options with anyone. Perhaps they were phone conversations or in person, but that aside, there was no board direction to seek to hire someone, except to prepare for RFP/RFQ.
Why were there no other presentations? We just heard from ONE company. In a minute, you will see that Tarpon Springs qualified 6 companies for this type of work, 3 of which qualified fully for ALL of what Tarpons Springs wanted, why did we not bring in those companies to give a presentation?
Again, why Inspire?
If you recall from above, on June 18th Inspire acknowledged a meeting with Steve Howard and Eric Landon. 8 days after the BOCC meeting, with no clear direction to look for a consultant, other than to discuss having a workshop and prepare a RFP for a comp plan review and we are already meeting with consultants? The plan at that time was to bid it out. So why is staff meeting with consultants, who come away from the conversation under the impression they will be hired and where did they come from?
Back on June 3rd-6th, Commissioner Bays attended the Florida Planning and Zoning Association's annual conference and was named FPZA's Planner of the Year for an elected official and given an award. She mentioned this conference at the June 10th BOCC meeting when discussing the need for a new comp plan.
I believe she was nominated by Metro Forecasting group which is our consultant on growth and has provided the county with growth modeling software. Do you know who else is part of FPZA? Inspire Placemaking Collective. Eric Raasch is one of the Principal Owners at Inspire and is also secretary at the Central Florida Chapter of the FPZA.
Did Commissioner Bays, Eric Landon and/or Steve Howard meet with Inspire at FPZA? I do not see any emails or anything to introduce Inspire to anyone. I did a records request for Steve Howard and Eric Landon as well as Bays and Kinnard. The first email contact was from Inspire thanking them for the Teams meeting. There had to be an introduction somewhere. Perhaps that was at FPZA.
Ok.. back on track.
Staff was trying to piggyback the contract in June, 8 days after the BOCC workshop on the 10th directing for RFP/RFQ and 12 days after FPZA. All this before the August Presentation to the board. Interesting.
Kinnard told them to do a piggyback in late August, a day after Inspire's presentation.
What happened to the RFP/RFQ? That would require them to choose the highest ranked firm. That may not be Inspire. For some reason, they were only focused on hiring Inspire. Why?
Note, this is the response from Steve Howard after Kinnard "approved" this.
Interesting that Howard says this is the "A" team. According to Tarpon Springs, they were tied for the "D" team overall and didn't even make the team for Community Resiliency. More on this shortly.
By the way. A quote from Commissioner Bays from the June 10, 2025 meeting: "Everything is built around resiliency...". She was acknowledging that this county needs to focus on things like flood mitigation. According to Tarpon Springs, Inspire is not qualified to provide services for that. Since we are piggybacking off their contract, their tabulations are also our tabulations.
This fact was also acknowledged by staff, back in July.
So again, why Inspire?
I wanted more information, so I went to Tarpon Springs. For this type of work, state law requires the government procurement process to solicit proposals and list at least 3 companies that can do the work, in ranked order. When a workorder is produced, the government then negotiates with the highest ranked company. If they cannot come to an agreement, they move to the next highest... and so on until they get an agreement.
Inspire was hired under a continuing services contract with 5 other companies for a total of 9 subject topics. Inspire qualified in 8 of the 9. You will see that shortly.
This is the response back
Going further, she said that Inspire was given the contract for the master plan because they were ranked #1 in that category. Which is true. So they did not need to negotiate with other companies. She references this tabulation sheet.
As noted earlier, Tarpon Springs awarded Inspire (and 5 others) a Continuing Services Contract for Planning services under RFP 240115-P-JL in October 2024. They then awarded Inspire a contract for its Master Plan revamp under 240115-P-JL in January 2025.
Citrus County hired them under the 240115-P-JL contract to provide continuing services to Citrus County...
Here is the Citrus County Administrative Regulation.
Here is the Piggyback request.
We hired them under the continuing services contract that Tarpon Springs used to qualify them and 5 other companies to provide services for potential future projects. We then are hiring them to do a comp plan revamp, even though Tarpon Springs only hired them to do this in Jan 2025 under their Master Plan contract.
Here is what Citrus County has hired them to do. Revamp the Comp Plan doing a variety of tasks that lead to looking at these sections.
We hired them for an ENTIRE comp plan adjustment, NOT specifically for Community Development and Re-development, as Tarpon Springs did. Note the differences in what Inspire will be looking at for Citrus and what they will be looking at for Tarpon Springs. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
Now another question arises. See Chapter 4 above? Coastal, Lakes and River Management. Remember from above when staff told Mr Landon that Inspire was not qualified for "Community Resilience"? Here is what Tarpon Springs includes in their continuing services contract regarding this section.
Many of these things fall under Chapter 4 of our Comp Plan.
How can we hire Inspire to do this work for us when they are NOT qualified under the contract we are piggybacking? Remember, Tarpon Springs did not hire them to do ALL of these things. They qualified them to potentially provide services for 8 of the 9 sections and only hired them so far under "Community Development and Redevelopment".
They also were not the highest ranked company in may of the other areas of our comp plan.
Chapter 2: Recreation and Open Space. They were ranked 4th in this category
Chapter 6: Multimodal Transportation Element. They were ranked 4th in this category.
Chapter 10: Land Use. They were ranked 2nd.
Chapter 15: Economic Development. They were ranked 3rd.
They are not the best at anything we need, other than housing... which, by the way, they are experts at the mixed-use housing areas.
Maybe some of these things fall under other categories in Tarpon Springs, but I did not see them specifically mentioned in the RFP.
Aviation, Utilities, Conservation, Infrastructure (Waste, Water, Drainage), Private Property Rights, Intergovernmental Coordination, Manatee, Library and Port Element.
All of those are chapters in our current Comp Plan that I do not see addressed by the RFP we piggybacked off of.
How can we hire Inspire for these services when they were not part of the original contract award?
Tarpon Springs is hiring them at $168k over 9 months. Citrus is hiring them at $560k over 16 months. Clearly different scope of work is involved. I am not sure that is allowed under the piggyback contract. In any case, Tarpon is paying $18,666.67 per month. Citrus will be paying $35,017.81 per month.
Again, clearly a different scope of services, which is not allowed under the piggyback contract based on my understanding (and I could be wrong).
I also found this.
That is from the contract the Inspire is signing with the county. If Tarpon Springs terminates their Inspire contract, our contract is also terminated. Makes sense since we are piggybacking a contract another entity has. But is this not a huge red flag? We can be paying for services that will never get finished in Tarpon Springs decides to cancel their contract for whatever reason?
And before you say it never happens. We terminate contracts all the time. In fact, back in April, we terminated the contract for the consultant that was working on the Interchange Areas as a result of the Suncoast Parkway. That is a pretty big deal and an important contract, yet we terminated it. Who is to say Tarpon Springs does not decide to do the same?
And remember, their Master Plan project in Tarpon Springs is expected to be finished in 9 months. Ours is estimated to take 16 months. Tarpon Springs can certainly cancel the agreement with Inspire after they get the Master Plan. Then our contract is terminated and we would have paid for 9 months of consulting that we cannot even use.
This is why it is important we do our own RFP/RFQ. It would then be OUR terms, not another entity's
I also found this interesting. One of the reasons commissioners wanted to hire Inspire was the community outreach they do when doing these comp plan reviews. They clearly want the community involved. It is a great idea.
Then there is this.
Howard sent a link to the St Johns County Plan update website that Inspire put together. You can view it here. Worthy of a note... This is 6 days after the BOCC meeting on June 10th directing staff to start the process for RFP/RFQ and 2 days before the meeting with Inspire via Teams.
Then Kinnard replies back with this.
He is acknowledging that Inspire only got 213 responses out of 320k residents. Fast forward to the August workshop, Inspire said they only had 300 people attend the workshops and community events and 1300 people fill out of the survey in Pasco County. Their population is 600k.
If we are wanting community engagement, Inspire does a very poor job of getting people involved, but yet, despite the proof of this from two larger counties, we hired them anyway. Help me make sense of that.
But bigger question. If they do the outreach and the community largely states an opinion, will commissioners even listen?
So why am I pointing all of this out?
For one, I want government to follow proper procedures. If they went through the proper processes and awarded Inspire a contract after a RFP, then so be it. I have nothing against Inspire. They appear to be good at what they do, although I question if we want to have a similar product as their other clients (Pasco, Polk, Sumter, etc). But not the point here.
We did not follow the proper process here, in my opinion.
Secondly, cost. We are struggling to find money for various projects, but we are ok with hiring consultants left and right. By skipping the procurement process of the RFP/RFQ, we are paying the selected company the fee they are charging. Is this a competitive amount? Could it be cheaper with another company? We don't know because we hand picked Inspire.
Third, is this what Citrus needs? We are piggybacking off of Tarpon Springs and their RFP process. This was catered towards what THEY need. Remember, Tarpons Springs did not consider many areas that we would need and Inspire is not even the highest rated company in many areas it did define.
Is this what we need here in Citrus or should we do our own RFP based on what we need here?
Certainly worth discussion.
I have fired off an email to staff to raise these concerns. If I am correct in what I have presented above, I believe the Inspire contract is in violation of state law and I assume would need to be cancelled. Or maybe I am completely wrong and nothing happens.
Will update everyone if I get a response. We shall see.