Council Holds Food Truck Bid Till June 2

WARWICK, RI — Monday, Warwick City Councilors and local food truck owners debated the City’s new approach to assigning mobile concession vendors, then held a food truck bid award to Ocean State Concessions as provider for 13 city events till June.

The food truck bid award will be considered again at the June 2 meeting, where Councilman Bill Muto, who was unable to attend due to a medical issue, is expected to attend and contribute a deciding vote.

Council, Business Owners, Debate Food Truck Bid

During the Council’s Finance Committee discussion on the bid, Mayor Frank Picozzi’s Chief of Staff Bill Facente explained that the City went out to bid to hire a food truck provider for 13 city-sponsored events. Two Warwick companies provide multiple food trucks for events, Facente said.

“We reached out to both of them,” and also advertised. Ocean State Concessions provided the only bid, which came in at least the minimum on all but two items. Two of the 13 items were minimum bids, with the other 11 a bit above the minimum.

minimum for all but two of the events. He estimated city will collect $8,260. vs. last year’s $4,350 for the City-sponsored events.

Facente said the bid award doesn’t prevent any food truck from driving through any other city park on other days and selling their concessions. He said it was the  first time the city has bid out for this type of event.

In the past, he said, the city had an agreement with a food truck provider to provide food trucks for events. Those food truck businesses were required to donate 10 percent of their proceeds. However, he said, there was no way to verify the proceeds, and trucks would often leave early before collection. This approach is more uniform and less subjective approach, he said.

“This is the first year that we’ve done this and I ask for a one year trial to see how it works,” Facente said.

Councilman Ed Ladocuer said he’s not comfortable with the process due to a lack of preference to Warwick vendors. He also noted that attendance estimates were not included in the bid, so he couldn’t gauge the required investment for the bid.

Ladouceur asked when the first event will be held, and Facente said  it would be on July 9.  He said that to make sure the food trucks are available for the event, the bid would need to be approved during Monday’s meeting.

Local business owners objected to the process during public comment on the item.

“I’m totally against it,” Rick Leandre said, “I feel like this process is unfair.” Leandresaid that  bidding on the job requires a city license and association fee. “You have a lot of Warwick based food trucks that aren’t part of the association,” he pointed out.

“It’s just a very hard process because you have to pay a license in the city, then you have to pay an association fee, and you’re still not guaranteed any bids in Warwick,’ Leandre said, “And there are a lot of vendors in Warwick that feel like that’s not a fair process.”

Robert Lombardi, owner of New England Lemonade in Warwick for 40 years, which has a location on Oakland Beach Avenue and provides food truck vending, said last year the city did an RFP seeking bids from food trucks to operate in the city. He said in past years he has paid to serve lemonade at city locations.

“I gave this city $18,000 for five venues. Waterfront, City Park, Mickey Stevens, Conimicut Point, Rocky Point, he said. “We put forth a bid on every location every year,” he said. Regarding the bid award to Ocean State Concessions, he said the bid process was unfair, and allows Ocean State Concessions to sub-let the spaces to food truck vendors, which individual vendors are not allowed to do.

“This is a monopoly. It’s wrong as it gets,” he said,  “We were told. No. Sub. Letting. What are they doing? Basically? You’re letting them do the job of people in Warwick that are getting paid for their positions and you’re letting this guy come in and he’s going to pick and choose who gets the locations as you referred to? That’s the truth of it. He owns four or five of those trucks. He’s creating a monopoly, OK? In front of ya, right in front of ya.”

Lombardi said that for the last three years the city has been missing out on the $18,000 he previously paid to be at city events. He said that since he sells lemonade, other food vendors can still provide other items at the events and not worry about competing with him.

Councilman Bryan Nappa asked if the city has done season-long RFPs for city vendors this year.

“They did not,” Facente said.

“Just chose not to examine that revenue stream?” Nappa asked.

“Right now we have chosen not to,” Facente said.

“For the city to lose out on that revenue, i think is counter-intuitive.” Nappa said.

The item, originally part of the meeting’s bid package, was removed to be considered separately  by the full council. Committee Vice Chair Ladouceur voted against recommending favorable action. Councilman William Foley and Nappa voted to recommend favorable action.

During the full meeting, Gebhart said that although he didn’t participate in the Committee discusssion, he had received a number of calls critical of the process awarding the food truck bid. He noted the issue was raised last year and years before, as well, but that failing to approve it this year would likely result in there being no concession services at City events. He said he’d support it but wanted to revisit the approach going forward.

“This always seems to be a sticky item, and it may be something that we want to engage in a public process to get folks here to hammer out some sort of equitable distribution of the assets that the city has available,” Gebhart said, “Make sure that we maximize the city’s revenue share on providing access to these assets, but also be fair, and, quite frankly, preferential, to Warwick businesses.”

Ladouceur’s position remained against the food truck bid approach.

“I objected to this process. I objected to the previous process. I think this  is  flawed. This is something that absolutely needs to be revisited. I think it’s unfair and I think it is taking away too much control and responsibility and authority from the administration,” he said, saying officials in the administration need to be responsible and accountable for vendor assignments to city events.

Rix disagreed that failing to approve the item would prevent food trucks from being at the events. He said it would instead open events to a larger number of potential food truck vendors which the city would then have to organize or deny attendance during the events.

“While I think that the city  made a process here that is at least rational, I think that we really could have done a lot better,” Rix said.

Foley said that the process was the best the city has yet come up with, despite much effort by Councilman Muto, unable to attend the meeting, who had personally reached out to vendors to devise a better system. Foley moved for favorable action.

Councilman Sal DeLuise agreed the process was flawed. “I think this isn’t a good fit right now,” he said.

The motion for favorable action failed 4-4, with Rix, Ladouceur, DeLuise and Councilman Jack Kirby voting against. Foley moved to hold the item until the June 2 meeting, at which, he said, Muto would be able to attend and could cast a deciding vote. The motion passed unanimously.