2 City Purchases Reveal Products’ Hybrid Origins

The city of Los Angeles cares more about how much things cost than where they come from. A measure being considered for placement on the June ballot would change that, granting California and Los Angeles County firms bidding preference on city contracts and establishing a minimum domestic content requirement for purchases. But, as these case studies from city purchasing files show, many products are hard-to-define hybrids of the global marketplace.

As the Los Angeles City Council began debating its “Buy American” proposal in January, the Police Department went shopping for a helicopter.

Since 1988, the department has been buying French-made Aerospatiale A-Star 350B1s, which cost about $82,000 less than the Long Ranger models offered by Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. of Hurst, Tex.

Although the city had historically purchased Bell helicopters, only Aerospatiale was able to meet newly imposed guidelines. The department required a helicopter that is able to fly for three hours while carrying a crew of two, communications equipment, a powerful searchlight and a public address system. The craft must also have enough lift capabilities and room for 800 pounds of accessories.

Aerospatiale met the specifications, while coming in at the lowest bid, $1,108,420 each, city officials said.

The purchase of the six A-Stars angered City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, author of the “Buy American” proposal, who has suggested that the bid specifications contained requirements only the French company could meet.

“It’s tough enough for our local firms to compete with the cheaper labor of out-of-state and foreign corporations,” Yaroslavsky said. “We should not impose artificial barriers on ourselves and our work.”

In fact, Aerospatiale helicopters purchased by customers in the United States are assembled by American labor forces from parts manufactured in France to meet certain specifications.

Bell, however, moved its manufacturing arm to Canada a few years ago.

So, “to buy American in this case would mean paying for a helicopter produced in Canada by a Canadian work force,” said LAPD Air Support Division Capt. Robert Woods.

While the department expects to consider bids in the coming weeks from firms including Aerospatiale, Bell, Sikorsky and McDonnell Douglas, some of the Police Department’s top chopper jockeys have their minds made up about which is best.

“I’m partial to the Bell,” said Norman Robinson, 49, an LAPD helicopter pilot for 18 years. “I grew up in a Bell and I like the way it responds in emergencies.”

But Ira Putnam, the department’s chief pilot, prefers the A-Star: “It’s smooth, vibration-free and faster.”

Woods will make a recommendation to city officials based on the competing bids. “My minimum standard,” he said, “will be aircraft safety.”

The decision will be “wrestled out among the city attorney, the City Council and the mayor,” Woods said.

As soon as Los Angeles awarded a contract for $110,000 worth of Canon standard electric typewriters last year, a local salesman for an American-owned competitor fired off letters of protest to city purchasers.

David De Glopper’s complaint was not that the machines were made by a Japanese-owned company. Rather, he said, the city’s bidding specifications seemed deliberately tailored to favor the Canon machines in an effort to standardize city office equipment.

Los Angeles officials responded that the Canons were the cheapest machines that met all their specifications. Also, the Canons had a superior rating in tests conducted by the Los Angeles Unified School District’s office machine repair department, city officials said.

The machines were purchased from Angelus Typewriters Business Systems of Los Angeles for $409.08 each. De Glopper argued that his Swintec Corp. machines were a superior product, even though they were offered at $770 each.

The fact that the Los Angeles City Council is considering placing on the ballot a proposal to give bidding preference to local firms would seem to give De Glopper an edge the next time the city needs typewriters.

But De Glopper is not eager to see the proposal become law.

The reason? Canon typewriters are assembled in Irvine, according to their distributor. Models by the New Jersey-based Swintec are produced mostly in Mexico, the Philippines, Japan and Korea, De Glopper said.

“I don’t know how much the city’s proposal would help me or hurt me,” De Glopper said.

The winning bidder also has concerns about what the new measure could mean. Mary Shen, president of Angelus Typewriters, said limiting competition or forcing firms to look for domestically produced parts might drive up prices. “It shouldn’t matter where a product was made,” Shen said.