Fire Truck Bids Questioned

Council schedules special meeting for discussion

Margo Frink

(Oneida – Nov. 18, 2009) After a recommendation by city Attorney Michel DeBottis to accept the lowest responsible bidder for the city’s new fire engine and a Common Council that appeared clueless to why the lowest bid wasn’t accepted, a special meeting to discuss bids further was scheduled during last night’s Oneida Common Council meeting.

Bids on the fire custom pumper were received and put on file in July. The lowest bidder was Har-Rob Fire Apparatus in East Syracuse at a cost of $382,000. Although the Sutphen Corporation of Dublin, Ohio was not the highest bidder, the fire truck committee recommended its bid of $440,000 be accepted, a difference of about $58,000.

DeBottis said that not accepting the lowest bid could be a legal issue.

“I recommend we go with the law,” DeBottis said. “And the law states we go with the lowest responsible bidder.”

Comptroller Joan Cukierski said her concern was “does the council know why it’s waiving the two lowest bidders?” But the council didn’t appear to know why it wasn’t accepting the low bid.

Fire Chief Hudson Donald Hudson said the committee looked at the products presented and some of the items specified were not present.

The Council was asked why the low bidder did not meet the specifications. Councilman Donald Moore said he picked up the information from the comptroller and some of it didn’t make sense.

“I have no idea,” Moore said.

Deputy Chief James Dowd who also headed up the fire truck committee said they received one other lower bid that wasn’t even close to their specifications.

“The truck you specified, is there extras on it or is it bare bones?” Moore asked Dowd.

“It is bare bones,” Dowd said, “considering we cut $23,000 of extras off the truck.”

“Is this equipment that we will have to purchase later?” Moore asked.

“Eventually, yes,” Dowd said.

The bid was tabled and a special meeting was scheduled for Monday Nov. 23 at noon in Council Chambers.

Margo Frink is managing editor for M3P Media LLC. She can be reached at 315-363-4254 or Margo@m3pmedia.com.

Fire Truck Bids Questioned

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