Holy cow! And the winner is:

I was able to catch the last few hours of the 01/06/2009 city council meeting and I was amazed.

(Let me warn you, towards the end of this report, I will actually say something good about Mayor Lawrence P. Mulligan, Jr.!!!)

There were several hours of presentation by the three bidders, including questions by city council members.

As usual, the slide presentations were not legible for TVMiddletown viewers nor were the slides of same available in the online workbooks.

However, based strictly on the presentations (but ignoring the illegible slides), in my estimation the best presentation was made by Nelson & Associates, who were rated tops by the “committee”, by the City Manager, and were the also the lowest qualified bidder at $2.167 million. Second in my judgment, again based just on tonight’s presentation was CGI Technologies, who were rated the second choice by the “committee”, by the City Manager, and were the second lowest qualified bidder at $2.407 million. Both of these companies indicated that there might be some room to negotiate, and the City Manager’s final recommendation was for council to authorize negotiations with both firms, with Nelson as the leading contender.

Strangely enough, the worst of the three presentations (as far as proposal presentations go) was CONSOC’s, the present Section 8 administrator, and also highest of the three bidders by about a half million dollars at $2.669 was by far the most interesting!!!

CONSOC’s presentation, by their own admission, was all DEFENSIVE!!! In fact, CONSOC embarrassed city hall by pointing out (and backing up with copies of memos) that all of the supposed “issues” that led up to the administration of the Section 8 program going out for bids were BOGUS and that CONSOC was being made the SCAPEGOAT!!! After several “bushes” were quite effectively “beat around” four or five times each, it became apparent, but left unsaid, that our old friend Kommander Kohler was actually the big problem!!!

Once that fact became unavoidable, the old: “we can’t look back, we must only look forward!!” mantra began ringing out. (You know the one. We hear it every time it becomes obvious that someone at city hall should be fired or prosecuted.)

Then, right after the city manager suggested that council take a few days to mull over the three presentations, suddenly councilman Moe…oops, I mean Marconi, moves to award the contract to CONSOC, the HIGHEST BIDDER!!!.

After a short discussion, the motion carried, 4-3! The roll?? Marconi, Armbuster, Schiavone, and Becker: AYE! Scott-Jones, Ford, and Lawrence P. Mulligan, Jr.: NAY!

For the very first time since BEFORE his election, I was actually in agreement with Mr. Mulligan. Before the vote, he actually did deliver some of the financial prowess that he campaigned upon 15 months ago. He questioned the wisdom of going with the HIGHEST bidder in these troubled fiscal times. Congratulations, Mr. Mulligan, on your correct, even though hesitant, NO vote!

PS: CITY COUNCIL is watching us! One city council member actually admitted reading “some of the city council blogs”!!! Could she have been referring to us??? 

So, will CONSOC’s bid be negotiated down, or UP? Will the “extra” half million needed to go with the HIGHEST bidder be found “tucked away in one of our other funds”? Will Kommander Kohler be called on the carpet? Will Haldeman, Erlichman, Mitchell, and Dean be seen skulking around in the dark in CONSOC’s file room? Will anyone question the strange “bidding” process wherein the “winner“ is the HIGHEST qualified bidder??

Be sure to tune in for the next EPISODE of:

THE NUMB AND THE FECKLESS!