WATCH: Pointe-Claire’s outdoor pools are busy places these days, but getting them ready for the season didn’t happen without controversy. Tim Sargeant reports.
POINTE-CLAIRE — For the first time in decades, LCS Pools didn’t get the contract to open Pointe-Claire’s seven outdoor pools this year.
The West-Island based company failed to qualify in its bidding application.
“Is the City of Pointe-Claire foolish for hiring us for 20 years and now deeming us not qualified?” company president Ugo Notargiacomo asked.
The company submitted a bid of $337,739.06 to open and maintain the pools for three years. That’s $92,514.48 less than the winning bid submitted by Groupe Sodem with an amount of $430,253.54.
But the city never considered the financial bid of LCS because it failed to qualify, according to the mayor.
“I would have assumed they should have passed, but they did not,” said Morris Trudeau .
“Why they didn’t pass, as I say, I cannot give you that answer. They did not answer the questions sufficiently.”
Notargiacomo argues his company met all the criteria, saying LCS Pools’ history, experience and expertise should have sufficed.
“You cannot deem us unqualified by any quantitative measure,” he said. “You’re just doing it because you can do it.”
A former long-standing employee of the city agrees.
“Well if he’s not qualified, nobody is,” Mike Clark said of Notargiacomo.
The company president doesn’t have plans to sue the city for now but he wants to make sure Groupe Sodem isn’t automatically rubber stamped to keep the contract for the following two years.
Pointe-Claire has an option to not renew the contract at the end of the outdoor swimming season.
LCS Pools also has most of the contracts for all the outdoor pools in the West Island.
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