A public agency rejects the lowest bid because the bidder failed to acknowledge a required addendum and omitted a mandatory subcontractor listing. This bid was properly rejected as:

Giải thích

A bid that misses a material requirement of the solicitation is nonresponsive and may be rejected however low it is; failing to acknowledge an addendum and omitting the subcontractor listing required by Public Contract Code §4104 are both material. An alternate bid is a priced option the agency itself invited, not a defective base bid. Calling it the lowest responsible bid confuses responsibility, which is about the bidder's capacity, with responsiveness, which is about the bid document. An agency may waive only an immaterial irregularity, and an omitted sub list is not one.