[NCUC-DISCUSS] Berkman Center to review the proposal to NTIA

[Ayden Férdeline]

+1 James

I performed a quick search on the FedBizOpps website a few minutes
ago, and from my cursory glance at the results this seemed to be
fairly common language for when a federal agency wants to quickly
appoint a sole source in order to procure their services. That's not
to say I think the Berkman Center is or is not the right vendor for
the role - and I absolutely agree with Stephanie that the optics
aren't ideal here - but I don't think there is anything necessarily
nefarious in the language used. The issue I have is more from a
business processes perspective: surely all public sector contracts
should be awarded in a transparent and meritocratic manner where we
pick the best party for the job through a structured evaluation and
selection procedure — and not on the basis of whether or not we've
done business with them before. But hey, the NIST is only spending
taxpayer funds… ;-)

Ayden

P.S. I'm on a train with sketchy wifi and have had to press the 'send'
button about 20 times... hopefully you receive this message only once.