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The contract itself was chosen from responses to a request for proposal (RFP) put out by the city. Once the winning proposal is chosen and placed on the city council agenda for approval, councillors don’t have the option to scrap it.

“I actually share Coun. Dubois’ concerns,” Coun. Randy Donauer said during the meeting. “By the time we see an RFP it’s too late and any moment now the city solicitor is going to stand up and tell us we have to approve it because we went to tender to public market with fair and honest principles and they responded to it and now we have to award it.”

Donauer said he is not opposed to hiring outside consultants, but he would like to see the reasons behind the decision before one is chosen and sent to council for approval.

Saskatoon city manager Murray Totland says RFPs only come to council if they are controversial, worth a lot of money or are unusual in some way.

“How are we going to be engaged in the future to question some of these?” Coun. Darren Hill asked city administrators. “When we keep sending an RFP out or hiring third party consultants we are not building capacity within our own team and I think we need to look at more of that. The administration has been instructed very clearly from this council and the previous council that we need to reign in the third party consultants – this RFP is not an example of reigning in third party consultants.”

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