(a) No elected official of the county governing body shall vote for or consent to the doing of any work and labor for any county or county government, or vote for or consent to the furnishing, having or using by or for the account of any county or county government of any merchandise, tools, implements, machinery or materials whatsoever, where the cost in any particular case will probably exceed the sum of $50,000 whether the work, labor, merchandise, tools, implements, machinery or materials shall be required for new work or for repairs upon old work, unless and until the county government shall publicly invite sealed proposals for the doing of such work and furnishing of such merchandise, tools, implements, machinery and materials, and give the contract resulting therefrom and therefor to the lowest responsible bidder or bidders.
(b) Bids so obtained shall be opened publicly in the presence of bidders, or their representatives, who may desire to attend.
(c) The county government may require of such bidder or bidders security for the faithful performance of the contract.
(d) Notwithstanding this section or any other law, the governments of Kent County and New Castle County may contract for engineering, legal or other professional services requiring special skills or training without requesting competitive bids and without awarding such contract to the lowest bidder.
(e) This section shall not apply to the purchase of printed matter for public libraries. Printed matter shall be defined, for purposes of this section, as materials typically made available to the public by public libraries and shall include, but not be limited to, books and magazines.
(f) Subsection (a) of this section shall not apply to the officials and government of Kent County which shall be subject only to those bid laws found at Chapter 69 of Title 29.
(g) Notwithstanding this section or any other law, the government of New Castle County shall have the same power and authority with respect to sole source procurement, emergency needs, contract performance and multiple source contracting granted to the State pursuant to Chapter 69 of Title 29.