City Beat: Council settes trunked radio system bid issue

Motorola was chosen to build the radio system to connect city, county and City Utilities

City Council signed off April 4 on a bid for Motorola to provide an 800 megahertz trunked radio system.

Council continued its April 3 meeting in order to further discuss the radio system bid at its April 4 luncheon meeting. The group voted 7-2 to accept the Motorola bid, with Mayor Lee Gannaway and Councilman Bob Chancellor voting against.

The discussion was continued because of concerns over the bidding process. Motorola and Ericsson competed for the bid, but there was ongoing confusion over the pricing component, which Gannaway said left him "a little disturbed."

"Both bidders are qualified with respect to the technical proposals, but Ericsson failed to provide the detailed pricing data requested," Gannaway said April 3.

There was confusion over exactly what the difference in the pricing of the bids was.

The bid process involved two procedures: a pricing bid and a technical bid, and the bid was awarded based on a point structure that accounted for both the price and the technical layout of the proposed system. Motorola won the bid, based on its total points, but its price was higher than that of Ericsson. The confusion came in on how much higher that price was: some documents from Ericsson showed a difference of less than $100,000; others showed Ericsson as being more than $1 million lower than the Motorola bid. Tom O'Neal, who represented Ericsson, believed the difference was $1.4 million, while City Attorney Howard Wright and other officials said the difference was less than $100,000.

The Greene County Commission and the Board of Public Utilities had already recommended accepting the Motorola bid. The total cost of the project, which is to be funded by a special law enforcement tax, is estimated to be $26.5 million.

The process concerned Gannaway, who voted against the ordinance because he said he thought the bid process was flawed and led to confusion over what Ericsson was actually offering.

Chancellor said he supported a re-bidding of the project, but others were concerned that would set the project back by four to six months.

The Motorola and Ericsson proposals were evaluated by the city-county Technical Users Advisory Committee before the Motorola recommendation was made to the city, CU and the county, all three of which had to support the recommendation.

Councilman Gary Gibson said he has faith in the technical committee's research and recommendation.

"I think the technical committee has evaluated this and made the best suggestion, and we ought to support what they've brought us," Gibson said.

Scott Schoepel, area sales manager for Motorola, said the company will now conduct a detailed design review of the system, and it will then begin the manufacturing of the equipment needed for the system. The system will be tested in May of 2001, he said.

No public speakers appeared to address an annexation of property on the corner of West Sunshine Street and West Bypass, where Wal-Mart has said it will erect a supercenter.

This is a routine annexation of the property, which is now privately held. Part of the annexation is for the future extension of West Bypass.

Council meetings can be viewed in their entirety the Friday and Sunday following the meetings at 7 p.m. on Cable Channel 23.