East Oregonian
January 30, 2003

Decision postponed on CSEPP bid projects

By JEANNINE KORANDA of the East Oregonian, jkoranda@eastoregonian.com

PENDLETON - The Umatilla County Commissioners opted Wednesday to postpone deciding on two bid protests for the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program.

The commissioners awarded the bid in December to build radio shelter buildings at the 450 megahertz radio towers that are part of CSEPP. The bid went to Legacy Wireless for $268,125.

Don Nienre, of D & D Concrete Utilities Inc., and Brad Copeland, lawyer for Ace Communication, both filed protests about the bid.

Nienre said the instruction to bidders were unusual and he felt his application was complete while the Legacy Wireless application was not.

"I don't feel it was a fair procedure if I included all those items and somebody else disregarded it and you awarded it to that person," he said. "I feel I'm the low responsive bidder."

Copeland expressed similar sentiments to Nienre.

James Kramer, of Legacy Wireless, said he opposed the protests and the possibility of the bid being reissued.

"I welcome and accept the protests and challenges that were made to the bid award of Legacy and appreciate my competitors' efforts of looking at the proposals," Kramer said.

"My perspective is that both of the protests, while being valid, make a lot of assumptions and unfortunately had bad information about the things they are pointing out about me," he said.

Rebidding the project would be detrimental to the county because of the time it would take.

The commissioners voted to postpone the matter until 2 p.m. Feb. 18 so county council could review the matter and so that Commissioner Dennis Doherty could be present for the vote after missing Wednesday's meeting due to a scheduling conflict.

The board also:

·Approved a bid by AAA Champion Interprize to provide janitorial service to the jail. The contract is for $1,575 a month, or $18,900 annually.

·Postponed deciding whether to pay Community Corrections $5.50 per hour per person for their work. Hansell suggested waiting until "some of the dust has settled" from Measure 28.