Private fiber and DIA Internet Service RFPREQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFPs)
FOR
Private fiber and DIA Internet Service
INFORMATION AND INSTRUCTIONS TO SUBMITTERS
1 GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 Pursuant to the authority granted to it under MCA Title 7, Chapter 5, Part 43, the City of
Kalispell is soliciting proposals for services and/or materials for fiber connectivity to city buildings
and an internet service provider to provide such services and or materials for the City of Kalispell.
1.2 The Proposal must be received by the City Clerk at 201 First Avenue East, Kalispell, Montana,
by 3 PM local time, September 17, 2021.
1.3 General questions pertaining to the project should be directed to Erika Billiet, at 406-758-7751
or it@kalispell.com.
1.4 The City of Kalispell shall not be held responsible for any oral instructions. Any changes to
this Request for Proposals (RFP) will be in the form of an addendum, which will be furnished to
all registered RFP holders.
1.5 The City of Kalispell reserves the right to reject any or all Proposals, to waive any informality
or irregularity in any Proposal received, and to be the sole judge of the merits of the respective
Proposals received.
1.6 A pre‐submittal conference for the project will be held at 201 First Avenue East, Kalispell, MT
on August 31, 2021, at 3 PM in the Council Chambers. City staff will discuss the scope of work,
general contract issues, and respond to questions from the attendees. Because staff will not be
available to respond to individual inquiries regarding the project scope outside of this pre‐submittal
conference, attendance at this pre‐submittal conference is highly recommended.
2 ‐ ANTICIPATED SCOPE OF WORK
After being selected, the successful Vendor will execute an agreement with the City to provide
services and/or materials to fulfill the following scope of work:
The City of Kalispell is increasing the Wide Area Network (WAN) to additional City buildings.
The WAN expansion will provide connectivity for the remote buildings to the other City buildings,
faster internet service to the remote buildings, and provide a redundant internet connection to the
WAN. The Public Safety Building, Parks and Recreation office and City Hall building are
currently connected with private fiber. The goal of the WAN expansion and new ISP is to mitigate
the disruption of critical services due to loss of internet connectivity.
The City of Kalispell buildings which will receive services as part of the scope of the project are:
• City Hall: 201 1st Ave. E. Kalispell, MT 59901
• Fire Station 62: 255 Old Reserve Drive Kalispell, MT 59901
• City Shop Complex: 1400 1st Ave. Kalispell, MT 59901
• Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP): 2001 Airport Road Kalispell, MT 59901
• Buffalo Hill: 100 Buffalo Drive Kalispell, MT 59901
The WAN expansion involves adding:
• 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) private fiber to each building.
• DIA (dedicated internet access) with 1 gbps x 1 gbps GPON (Gigabit passive optical
network) service.
• Circuit monitoring included.
Costs Specified:
Fiber connectivity to each of the buildings will be included in the project scope. Construction
costs should be provided in a one-time fee schedule and an amortized 60-month fee schedule if
available, 0% interest preferred.
Monthly service fees, one-time costs, provisioning labor, administrative costs, shipping costs, and
other costs not listed here should be included with the proposal.
The City may not add private fiber and DIA internet to all of the buildings specified in the first
year or not at all. The City may move one building at a time to the private fiber and gig DIA.
The service provider must provide local tech support and respond onsite to trouble shooting as
needed. Response time to outage requests must be no greater than 2 hours.
The service provider must support multiple paths out of the valley that do not meet on the same
outlaying path. A single exit point out of the valley does not meet specifications. The City’s
existing internet service should be considered as the existing service and must not be added as the
secondary internet service. At the pre-submittal meeting, the current service provider will be
disclosed.
Installation considerations:
Access into buildings and into City properties must be coordinated with City staff.
3 ‐ PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA
3.1 The Proposal will be selected through the following selection process. Firms interested in
providing the above-described scope of services to the City of Kalispell must submit a Proposal
that addresses the following evaluation criteria. Applicants are encouraged to organize their
submissions in such a way as to follow the general evaluation criteria listed below. Information
included within the RFP may be used to evaluate your firm as part of any criteria regardless of
where that information is found within the RFP. Information obtained from the RFP and from any
other relevant source may be used in the evaluation and selection process.
3.2 Cover Letter (1‐page) containing at a minimum: Company name, contact name, address, fax
number, and email address. (5 points)
3.3 Qualifications Criteria
3.3.1 General Information (5 points)
Description of company
Legal company organization; organization chart with names
List of applicable Montana licenses
3.3.2 Relevant Company Experience (20 points)
a. Applicant’s overall reputation, service capabilities and quality as it relates to this
Proposal.
b. Referrals and references from other municipalities or local governments.
c. List and describe any litigation; arbitration; claims filed by your firm against any other
jurisdiction as a result of a contract dispute; any contract or negligence claims filed against
your company; premature termination from a services agreement.
d. Applicant’s capacity and intent to proceed without delay if selected.
3.3.3 Company Qualifications (10 points)
a. Describe the company’s history in the industry. Provide resumes of key personnel in
Appendix A. List professional continuing education.
b. Briefly describe certifications and licensure held by the company in the state of Montana.
3.3.4 Contract Understanding and Approach (15 points)
a. Describe your understanding of the scope of work and the particular expertise your
company has in this area of work.
b. Identify and discuss any potential difficult issues your company may face in providing
services within Flathead County.
c. Identify and discuss methods to mitigate these difficulties.
3.3.5 Approach to Contract Management (21 points)
a. Describe your company’s approach in initiating and establishing the service that meet
the needs and requirements of the City.
b. Describe systems used for planning, scheduling, estimating, and managing manpower
requirements.
c. Describe the firm’s experience in maintaining training and certifications of personnel.
3.3.6 Proposal for Project (15 points)
a. Provide a work schedule with beginning and ending times that meet the scope criteria.
b. Provide a full schedule of proposed work methods that meet the scope criteria.
c. Provide a full schedule of costs for each component of the work scope.
3.3.7 Other Factors (9 points)
a. Current contracts and ability to proceed promptly.
b. Willingness to abide by the City’s needs and requirements with few or no objections or
changes.
c. Relevant factors impacting the quality and value of service.
4 ‐ SUBMITTAL REQUIREMENTS
4.1 The Proposal shall include a one‐page cover letter plus a maximum of fifteen (15) pages to
address the RFP criteria specified in Section 3 (excluding resumes). Table of Contents and section
divider pages do not count towards the total page count.
4.2 Five copies of the Proposal must be submitted to the City Clerk at 201 First Avenue East,
Kalispell, Montana, 59901 by 3 PM local time, 9/17/21.
4.3 Failure to comply with the following criteria may be grounds for disqualification:
Receipt of submittal by the specific cut‐off date and time.
The number of originals and/or copies of the submittal specified.
Adherence to maximum page requirements.
4.4 Adherence to the maximum page criteria is critical; each page side (maximum 8 1/2” x 11”)
with criteria information will be counted. Pages that have photos, charts and graphs will be counted
towards the maximum number of pages.
5 ‐ SELECTION PROCESS AND SCHEDULE
5.1 A 5‐member Project Evaluation Committee will evaluate each Proposal according to the above
criteria and may select up to three finalists that will be Short Listed for the contract. If interviews
are determined to be desirable, the Short List firms will meet with the Project Evaluation
Committee for interviews. The purpose of the interview will be to expand on the information
provided in the Proposal, not to repeat information already provided. Those firms selected for the
Short List will be provided additional instruction by the City. Those firms not selected for further
consideration will be notified.
5.2 The following tentative schedule has been prepared for this project. Firms interested in this
project must be available on the interview meeting date.
Pre‐submittal conference: 3 PM, August 31, 2021
Proposals due: 3 PM, September 17, 2021
Firms notified for interview: September 29, 2021
Interviews: October 5, 2021
5.3 Following the interviews, the Project Evaluation Committee will rank each Short List firm of
this RFP. Consideration will be given to both the written Proposals and any oral presentations or
interviews. No other factors or criteria will be used in the qualification ranking.
5.4 The highest ranked firm will be recommended to the City Manager and City Council for
contract award.
5.5 Requests for debriefings or selection decisions shall be made in writing to the City. All
information submitted by firms and related Project Evaluation Committee evaluations and
rankings shall be considered confidential until after contract execution and award by the City
Council.
5.6 The City will enter a contract upon selection of the firm for the project to be submitted to the
City Council for approval. A template of the proposed contract with the City will be provided to
the Proposers upon request. If the selected firm determines not to enter into a contract with the
City, the City may then contact the second or third highest ranked team until a contract is executed
or may decide to terminate the selection process.
6 – CONTRACT NEGOTIATION PROCESS
6.1 The highest-ranked Submitter may be invited to enter into Contract negotiations with the
City of Kalispell. If an agreement cannot be reached with the highest-ranked Submitter, the City
shall notify the Submitter and terminate negotiations. The second highest-ranked Submitter may
then be contacted for negotiations. This process will continue until successful negotiations are
achieved. However, the City reserves the right to terminate negotiations with any Submitter
should the City determine it to be in the City’s best interest.
Publication Dates: August 22, 2021
September 5, 2021