County Board’s Flawed Decision Costs Taxpayers $76 Million
Today, a special committee hand-picked by County Board leaders, spent five minutes in open session and quickly voted to not allow the contract.
The Milwaukee County Board today cost taxpayers $76.3 million by rejecting a new transit contract.
MV Transportation, a nationally recognized and respected company, was awarded the transit contract last year after winning a competitive bidding process. Two of the losing bidders filed appeals with the County Board. Today, a special committee hand-picked by County Board leaders, spent five minutes in open session and quickly voted to not allow the contract.
“The decision today upholds the status quo and costs taxpayers millions and millions of dollars. Our transit system has been on life-support for years, this contract would have allowed us to put more money into bus service and remake a broken system,” County Executive Chris Abele said. “The County Board’s decision lacks factual support or legal reasoning and it should concern every resident of Milwaukee County who wants their government to save money and run more efficiently.”
County Executive Abele has directed the Department of Transportation to explore every avenue on how to best move forward.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
Mr. Abele bends the truth with “spent five minutes in open session and quickly voted to not allow the contract.” That was Thursday. Two days earlier the committee spent some four or five hours in open session listening to the appeals and the MCDOT rejoinders. There was no lack of time spent getting to a decision. According to a member of the committee, the decision meeting itself required 24 hour notice (by ordinance) thus pushing the decision off two days from the hearing itself.
As for the “loss” of $76 million, well, that’s if all vendors were created equal. But it now is clear the MV was in over its head on this proposal and was unable to provide the detail the Proposal Evaluators managed to find in Veolia and MTS’ proposals.
Rather than degrade the work of the committee, Mr. Abele might find his way to writing an RFP with the help of the County Board. Collaboration gets the job done.