Toccoa Looks At Local Preferred Vendor Ordinance Proposal

The city of Toccoa is considering an ordinance to help local bidders in the bidding process.

Monday at their work session, Toccoa City Commissioners discussed an ordinance that would give preference in certain cases to local vendors who submit bids on projects or equipment.

The proposed rule would give the city commission permission to give a local vendor’s bid preference if it is within two percent of non-local vendor’s bid in cases where the non-local vendor’s bid is the low bid.

There would be certain exceptions where the rule could not apply.

Toccoa City Manager Billy Morse said this is something that the city has looked at putting in place from time to time.

“The commission, through the years, has looked at an ordinance that would allow us to do business with a local vendor, even if they did not happen to be the absolute lowest bid or lowest quote on an item,” said Morse.

The original proposal put before the commission Monday defined a local vendor as one within 40 miles of Toccoa.

However, City Commissioner David Austin feels that 40 miles is too broad an area and would want local preference to be limited to a more defined area.

“I am not sure that I want to say they are a local bidder that I want to give preference to,” said Austin. “I want to help people who do business in the city limits in Toccoa and probably expand it to Stephens County, but not outside of Stephens County.”

City Attorney John Dickerson said that is a change that could be made to the ordinance.

Morse said that it if put in place, it might not apply often.

However, he said that it is certainly something worth considering to make sure the city is covering all of its bases.

“I am not absolutely sure we need this ordinance and I think the commission feels the same way, but at the same time, if there is something we can put on paper that can help keep our local tax dollars local, they want to see that happen,” said Morse.

The city attorney will make changes to the ordinance as requested by the commission and Morse said it will come back up for further discussion at a later meeting.