survey on Winnipeg Police Service.

Unfortunately...there's huge factors that aren't revealed by totals in bids.

1) Paragon could already be "on site" (or nearby) from a current ongoing job, so mobilization costs and setup costs are not factored in...thus giving them a slight advantage.
2) "High Bids" are quite often "dream bids" from companies who don't really want the job...but are required to bid on a certain number of projects in order to keep their company in the "loop" for other bids. Basically, they bid extremely high figuring if their bid actually gets selected...the extra costs will make it worth the extra effort they'll have to do.
3) Misread - it's also possible Paragon didn't read the whole spec, or put numbers in incorrectly/incomplete. A recent project we bid on, we were 3rd, but the low bid was more than $400k lower than the 2nd. It turns out, they missed some very important components in the specs...and misread some numbers in calculations in their rush to submit the tender. Had the city taken the bid...it could quite well have bankrupted that company.
4) Many times a bidder is waiting for numbers from their subtrades before they can put a bid together completely...and those numbers don't come in quickly enough to make the tender deadline.

Heh...weak.

Paragon has been around since Christ was a kid.

I was thinking perhaps number 3.. but at least one other bidder was below 2K and its not like paragon is inexperienced.

But yeah.. totally lots of different things can impact the bids and thats kinda the point. We still have people complaining about the ice resurface bids being lost to another out of province company... when they have no clue at all about the real reasons or even if the local guy met the specs.

Can't we believe that all of the bidders would bid to spec?

One doesn't add on a whole wack of crab that wasn't in the bid and include it in the price.

I reckon, from having seen Paragon operate several times, that it wouldn't have taken them more than a couple of hours.

Well here is yet another police survey. I THINK I understand why they would do one survey, but two? So close together? Will there be an unbiased methodology and will the survey be released unfettered to the public, warts and all?

The Winnipeg Police Service has launched a survey to ask residents about public safety and the role police play.

About 800 Winnipeg homes will be contacted by telephone for the public opinion survey that begins Thursday and runs until Monday.

“Ultimately, without having feedback from the community, it is difficult for us to do our jobs,” Const. Jason Michalyshen said. “We always need feedback from the community.”

WPS has contracted Navigant Technologies to conduct the survey.

“The goal is to learn more about their views of the (WPS) and afford them the opportunity to share their beliefs pertaining to crime and public safety,” Michalyshen said.

Police plan to make the results public and use the feedback to improve service.

“We strive to improve, and our dedication and motivation is to serve the citizens of Winnipeg,” Michalyshen said.

The survey is random, and calls will be make throughout all areas of the city, so there is a “diverse group of individuals answering these questions.”

“We want the survey to be open, honest and accurate,” Michalyshen said.

I think they'll keep doing these survey's until they get the results they want. You know, sorta' like one million monkeys...

I hope they phone me.

Its the same survey

They finally tendered the bid and are now performing it.

"Ultimately, without having feedback from the community, it is difficult for us to do our jobs,"

LOL

Then perhaps
a) get the hell out of the cars
b) listen to people when they want to talk to you

With the discussion that was going on people should be more sensitive about surveys and bias. Doing a survey like this as a phone survey will most likely produce heavily biased results, because so many people have switched to cell phone only service and thus can not be reached. Particularly lower income people who may be most affected by the questions asked often have the lowest rate prepaid phones that are not listed, and they would refuse the survey anyway. No way this can produce any representative results.

good points, but for the most part the landline is still prevalent (at least this year), the results should be fairly okay(ish)

Deank wrote:good points, but for the most part the landline is still prevalent (at least this year), the results should be fairly okay(ish)

It made a difference for health surveys four years ago:

http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/71/5/734.full

so likely impacts crime/police surveys even more now.

Not quite yet in Winnipeg.

Besides, the cops only really want to hear from people over 65