A cafeteria worker serves up salad.
Photograph by: John Mahoney, The Gazette
By LINDA GYULAI - When Montreal police put out a call to find a food and catering provider to run the cafeteria at their headquarters this summer, only one company served up an offer.
While the cash-strapped force cut dozens of temporary officers, left 60 permanent positions unfilled and scaled back on overtime to chop $13.85 million out of its budget this year, Servibec Inc. will conduct business rent-free and pay nothing to the police as it sells food and drinks at a cafeteria snack counter and operates vending machines at the department's St. Urbain St. headquarters.
The city will pay for maintenance and electricity.
Usually, the city and the boroughs charge food service providers rent and a percentage of sales to run a snack bar in an arena or other municipal building.
The borough of Montreal North, for instance, charges $300 rent per month plus a $125 monthly royalty to the firm running the food counter at the Montreal North Arena, and $200 rent plus a $50 royalty per month to the same firm at Henri Bourassa Arena.
In the police cafeteria contract, although Servibec Inc. was the sole bidder in the public tender, a civil service report presented to the city executive committee last week called the company the "lowest complying bidder."
The police force also says in the report that Servibec's bid was evaluated by a selection committee. It wasn't.
In fact, an examination of the process that led to the three-year agreement,which has two one-year optional renewals, shows how municipalities can adjust the Quebec government's contract-tendering rules to suit their needs - for example, whether to go back to tenders if a contract elicits only one bid.
The executive committee approved the agreement with Servibec last week. This week, it goes to the full city council and the island council for final approval.
But the police department says it couldn't risk charging rent or a royalty to a food service provider.
"You'll notice there weren't many people interested in bidding," said Didier Deramond, a chief inspector in the force's administrative office. "If we charged rent, we definitely wouldn't have had anyone."
Servibec Gestion Alimentaire Inc., registered separately from Servibec Inc. and now defunct, won the bid to run the police cafeteria in 2004. Seven companies picked up the tender specifications that year, and four submitted bids. Besides Gestion Alimentaire, one bidder was Buffet Trio Inc., another operating name for Servibec Inc.
This time, one company besides Servibec picked up the tender specifications, but did not submit a bid.
Servibec was founded as Buffet Trio by Giuseppe (Joe) Morselli, a Liberal Party of Canada fundraiser and a witness at the Gomery commission inquiry into the federal sponsorship scandal. Morselli died in 2006.
His son and son-in-law, who run Servibec, and other company officials whom The Gazette tried to contact last week did not return calls.
Groupe Trio Inc., also an operating name for Servibec in the past, raised eyebrows in 2003 and 2004 after parents from two Montreal North high schools complained the company was serving "tiny portions and a flagrant lack of vegetables" in cafeterias in Commission scolaire de la Pointe de l'Île schools.
Company officials at the time said the complaints were false.
The police department isn't paying anything under the food service agreement, Deramond said. The 1,000 employees who use the headquarters pay for their food and beverages. "They (Servibec) are offering a service," he said.
Deals that cost little or nothing can be arranged by mutual agreement rather than through public tenders, Deramond said.
"So we aren't even obliged to go to tenders, but we did anyway in the interests of transparency."
The Cities and Towns Act has no specific language that prevents municipalities from awarding a contract if there is just one bidder, city spokesperson Patricia Lowe said.
When a contract goes to a sole bidder, it's city policy for the person responsible for the file in Montreal's supplies department, which oversees contract tenders for municipal departments and the police, to explain to the elected officials awarding the contract why the call for tenders was not successful, she said.
Explanations might include a lack of interest by firms, or a short deadline.
The civil service report that went to the executive committee doesn't provide a reason for the single-source bid on the food service agreement.
But the report says refusing the Servibec agreement "will have a direct impact on the safety of the police department by making it impossible to stock up on meals for personnel working on rotation as well those providing 24-hour emergency service in case of a major event."
Even if Servibec was the sole bidder, the company's offer had to comply with the tender specifications. But while the police report says a selection committee evaluated the bid, Lowe said that wasn't the case.
An employee in the city's supplies department examined the bid with a representative of the police department, she said. "There was no jury or selection committee."
The two gave the company 50 points out of a possible 50 for price. The assessment was based on 11 sample menu items, including a 300-millilitre cup of coffee, a full meal, a breakfast, sandwiches and some vending machine items.
Servibec got the perfect score "since they were the only ones," Lowe said. "It's just a formality to show they were the lowest bidder."
Price was worth half the points in the evaluation; menu, overall concept and the company's experience accounted for the rest.
Servibec isn't being charged rent because the volume of business isn't as high as at municipal arenas, Lowe said.
The police cafeteria serves breakfast, lunch and snacks and provides vending machines at night, so the variety of food the company can sell is limited as well, she said.
Employees can bring their own meals to the cafeteria, she added. "And it would not be attractive to a restaurant business to bid on a service like this if it had to pay rent as well."
lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com