Camera bids would outweigh the negatives
Picking a supplier to provide surveillance cameras for Warren without collecting official bids may be legal, but is it the right way to do business?
This week, Warren Safety Service Director Enzo Cantalamessa inked a $33,103 contract with Girard-based VEC Inc. to provide four video cameras, mounting brackets, bulletproof casings and other ancillary items that the city intends to use to head off illegal dumping, vandalism and other crime.
Cantalamessa and Mayor Doug Franklin were quick to point out that the purchase does not require public bids because the total cost is less than $50,000. Instead of accepting bids, they said the city service director shopped around to see if prices lower or better than VEC’s existed.
But a public record request for the written quotes showed at least one came in more than a year ago, and the other was undated.
A quote from ALC Security and Communications was dated July 29, 2013, and one from Videolarm, which appears to be printed from a web site, has no date.
The city administrators previously stated they had received unsolicited proposals from three other companies looking to sell camera systems, but they did not provide copies of any other bids in response to our record request.
Cantalamessa last week stressed there was little time to get formal quotes because city council was planning to reallocate the grant money earmarked for the cameras if it wasn’t spent by June 1.
But he also said this about the camera purchase: “We aren’t looking necessarily to do it quickly. We were looking to do it right.”
If that’s the case, and given that the camera idea is not new, we wonder why more requests weren’t made for fresh formal written quotes from competing security system companies.
The selection of VEC already had come amid controversy because it arose just days before the May 5 primary election, and VEC’s salesman Jim Bluedorn was a candidate for the Warren 4th Ward Democratic nomination, opening the door for pre-election publicity for Bluedorn.
Bluedorn, who went on to win the three-way race for the nomination, denied that his candidacy had any connection to the camera purchase.
Whether or not Bluedorn’s candidacy played a role in the city’s selection process probably never will be known for certain.
Unfortunately for him and the city administration, no fresh quotes or bids exist to prove that VEC was the lowest and best quote that could change the public perception that this selection smacked of impropriety or at least bad political behavior.