Manorhaven attorney says bid restriction cost village $1 million

Sarah Minkewicz

Village of Manorhaven trustees proposed a law to forbid geographic restrictions on bids for services on Thursday. 

“The reason for this is in the past, not with this administration, with the past administration, there was a restriction put in to our bidding for services and for goods,” Village Justice James Toner said at the March 24 Board of Trustees meeting. “This restriction more or less effected the garbage and sewer contracts. What it did was it prevented outside companies from bidding if they did not have a maintenance facility within a four-mile radiance of Manorhaven within the Town of North Hempstead.”

Toner said the geographic restriction cost taxpayers approximately $1 million between the garbage contract and sewer maintain contract.

Toner said the Village Board turned down a request by Meadow Carting Corp. of Westbury in 2008 to renew its contract to cart garbage for a year at a cost of $469,000 after imposing a requirement that vendors be located within four miles of the village.

“What the board did at the time was they imposed a four-mile restriction. As a result of that four mile restriction Meadow was no longer able to bid,” Toner said. “The Dejana Company was able to bid because there was that four-mile restriction. The successful bid on the contract was $563,000 so the village paid $94,000 more because they rejected the renewal of Meadow who had an office in Westbury.”

Toner said Meadow Carting had sent in two letters objecting to the four-mile radius restriction after it was imposed, stating that as a result of the four-mile radius law we are unable to bid for this contract.”

Village Trustee Rita DiLucia disagreed with Toner. 

“When it was presented to the board it never said that Meadow did not put in there bid it was never explained to the board that they didn’t put in their bid because they didn’t meet the criteria,” DiLucia said. 

DiLucia said this isn’t the case anymore because the village currently has a contract with Meadow Carting. 

There will be a public hearing on April 21 on the proposed to law to forbid geographic restrictions on bids. 

Efforts to reach officials at Meadow Carting and Dejana were unavailing.

Also at the meeting, trustees passed a law to establish a single parking spot designated for motorcycles at the Northern end of Juniper Road and a single parking spot designated for motorcycles on Firwood Road. 

Trustees said residents complained that they couldn’t get out of their driveway and go to work because cars would park in front of their driveway. 

“This was a very creative approach,” Village Trustee Priscilla Roeschlaub said. “The problem was cars were parking there and blocking the two driveways because it’s not large enough for a car so what we’ve done is say we’re going to make it for motorcycles. If a motorcycle is there they can still get in and out of their driveways.” 

Trustees also discussed a contract with GovPilot for an internal GIS mapping system to enhance and help the traffic department. 

GovPilot is a cloud-based municipal management platform designed to centralize the town’s data and provide automation to digitize workflow. 

Officials said the purpose of the computer program is to eliminate the use of paper, which will allow electronic signatures, and documents and pictures to be attached. 

Residents would be able to submit a complaint and get notified of the process immediately. 

“Things that become standard in our every day lives, apps such as Yelp, being able to search for restaurants and it’s going to show you on the map where those restaurants are, we want to bring that technology to local government,” GovPilot director of sales James Delmonico said. “We want you to be able to create any sort of search and report you’d like by being able to search all of the forms, licenses, applications, concerns, inspections and all of those fields within those forms.”

DiLucia said her reason for supporting the program is code enforcement. 

“[Village Code Enforcement Officer] Kareem [Buckley] can be out on the road, have his iPhone or iPod,” DiLucia said. “He can basically do it right there on his phone, print it out and put the ticket right on the person’s car.”

The yearly subscription for the service is $2,500 a year. GovPilot provides services to more than 30 clients in New Jersey, Albany and Nassau County. 

The board plans to make a resolution to go forward with subscribing to GovPilot at the next board meeting. 

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