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Honolulu’s rail contracting process took a direct hit from a frustrated bidder Wednesday.

More than six hours into a heated meeting, and just minutes before the session was adjourned, members of the City Council Transportation Committee heard the contractor tell them that the administration had given a false impression about the cost of a deal announced last week.

The claim was like throwing fuel on a fire, coming as it did after relentless questioning of the administration over its handling of the $5.5 billion project.

Andrew Robbins, vice president of business development for Bombardier, stepped forward and gave surprise testimony.

Robbins claimed that his company offered a cheaper alternative than the winning bidder, Ansaldo Honolulu, and that it would have scored higher in the rankings used to evaluate projects if his firm hadn’t been improperly disqualified. The third company that tried to win the contract to design, build, operate and maintain the rail cars and system, Sumitomo Corp., has also objected to the city’s process in awarding what’s known as the “core systems” contract.

The thrust of Robbins’ allegation was that Ansaldo gave a rosier price when it comes to the construction portion of the project, but that his firm offered a better overall value if construction and operating costs were totaled.

Robbins said he felt compelled to set the record straight after sitting through hours of testimony from Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle‘s administration, including discussion of why his company’s proposal had been disqualified.

“I think our reputation is at stake,” Robbins said. “Bombardier submitted the overall best value to the city.”

Robbins disputed the city’s characterization of the cost of the Ansaldo Honolulu deal, taking issue with its emphasis on the cost of the design/build phase as separate from the operations and maintenance costs, which are also included in the contract.

“The core systems contract, as has been talked about here, is a Design, Build, Operate and Maintain contract,” Robbins said. “It’s not just about the initial price. Contrary to what was said earlier, there was no (separate) construction contract. It was a DBOM contract.”

Last week, the city announced it wanted to award a $574 million core systems contract to Ansaldo Honolulu. A Civil Beat investigation found the contract would actually be worth more than $1 billion, including the operations and maintenances costs Carlisle did not include in his announcement.

Honolulu rail chief Toru Hamayasu, Managing Director Doug Chin and city Budget Director Mike Hansen repeatedly defended the $574 characterization as appropriate, while City Council members challenged them on why the full DBOM value wasn’t presented when the contract was announced.

“I think the context of the comments that were made, we were talking about just what is it going to cost us to construct this project,” Hansen said. “This project includes a construction component. This is where we are as far as the construction of this project.”

When Robbins testified later, he rejected that approach.

“I don’t know how you can separate it in the valuation process,” Robbins said. “During the construction period, the design build (period) and what’s called the intermediate operations and maintenance (period), because they’re happening at the same time.”

Assessing the cost of all components of the DBOM contract also demonstrates that a low price in one phase doesn’t guarantee the lowest price throughout.

“Our price was, during the eight-and-a-half-year-year construction period, only 5.8 percent higher than our competitor,” Robbins said. “Our full operations and maintenance cost was 92 percent lower than our next competitor.”

But city officials ultimately left Bombardier out of the final ranking, which Robbins said cost Bombardier the contract.

“In the evaluation of the initial proposals, Bombardier was awarded the most points, and we would have won the contract last June,” Robbins said. “But the city exercised its right to — instead of award a contract at that time — go to best and final offers. It’s also clear that we would have won the scoring this time, had not the city pushed us aside and disqualified our second (best and final offer) right at the end of the process.”

City officials were vague about the reasons and details surrounding the disqualification, and only confirmed Bombardier’s proposal was deemed “unresponsive” over a liability issue.

“It was deemed nonresponsive because the proposal was conditioned,” said Wendy Imamura, the city’s purchasing and contracts administrator. “The letter to Bombardier (explaining why) stated that they conditioned their proposal on a change in the indemnification process.”

Robbins says the condition Imamura describes was an attempt by his company to make a clearer agreement.

“It wasn’t really a condition in our mind, it was the way that the clause was written,” Robbins said. “We pointed out that it was confusing, contradictory, awkward and faulty language. We don’t really have an issue with the issue. We have an issue with the way it’s drafted.”

Robbins is also challenging why the city waited until the last minute to oust Bombardier, saying officials should have asked the company about the condition in question after Bombardier submitted its first two proposals. Companies were given three total opportunities to make offers.

“The issue which disqualified us was consistently presented by us since our first proposal last June,” Robbins told the City Council. “There were no changes to the specs in that regard, all the way up to finding out last Monday that we were disqualified. Obviously we strongly disagree with the finding of disqualification.”

Robbins said Bombardier hasn’t yet decided whether it will formally protest the city’s pick of Ansaldo Honolulu as the winning bid, but he is participating in a debrief on Monday that will pave the way for a possible protest.

Sumitomo Corp., the other company that lost in its bid for the contract, has already announced its plans to formally protest the city’s decision. Sumitomo Vice President Gino Antoniello told Civil Beat earlier this week that price realism was “absolutely, without a doubt thrown out at the last minute.”