Two companies are for the second time charging that the Maine Public Utilities Commission was unfair when it awarded a contract to FairPoint Communications to upgrade the state’s 9-1-1 systems.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission has awarded the $32 million NextGen 9-1-1 contract to FairPoint twice in six months. But Lewiston-based Oxford Networks and Colorado-based Intrado, who both submitted lower bids than FairPoint, state in separate appeals that the bidding process again unfairly favored FairPoint.
PUC originally granted the contract to FairPoint, which holds the current contract for 9-1-1 services, on Jan. 6. That award was invalidated by a decision of Maine Bureau of General Services’ bureau of purchases appeal panel, which concluded there were irregularities in the scoring process and violations of Maine bidding law.
Bids were rescored and the contract was awarded again to FairPoint on June 6.
Oxford Networks noted in its appeal that the first bidding process was found to be arbitrary and fundamentally unfair.
“Undeterred by that setback, the PUC hastily closed ranks, reconvened an ostensibly new review team, and rescored the original proposals without offering the bidders any opportunity to supplement their proposals or make oral presentations as permitted under the terms of the RFP,” stated an appeal from Lewiston-based Oxford Networks, one of nine companies that submitted bids for the project.
Oxford maintains it should have been the winning bidder under the review process.
“The PUC’s latest, and utterly transparent, effort to put the NextGen 911 contract into the hands of FairPoint — apparently by any means necessary — cannot stand,” states the Oxford appeal.
Oxford said the rejection of its bid was arbitrary and capricious and FairPoint’s bid failed to comply with the specifications in the state’s requests for proposals.
Intrado claims in its appeal that bids were good only through May 20 and that after that date new bids needed to be submitted.
Fairpoint was awarded the NextGen 9-1-1 contract with its bid of $32,364,514. Intrado bid $27,799,492 and Oxford bid $24,919,307.
FairPoint’s current contract expires Oct. 31, 2013. The new contract is for five years.
The PUC defended its actions in a response emailed Friday to the Bangor Daily News.
“I believe the process leading to the award was fair, designed only to find the best provider for this vital public service. I am disappointed that Oxford has chosen to suggest that the process had a predetermined outcome. As we intend to show the board of contract appeals, it did not,” stated the response from PUC Chairman Thomas Welch.
FairPoint spokesperson Jeff Nevins also defended his company’s bid in a written statement.
“We responded to the state request for proposal by offering a premium state-of-the-art system to handle emergency calls in Maine. We believe the new system will solidify the state’s leadership in providing ‘next-generation’ 9-1-1 for the residents of Maine,” Nevins stated.
The current 9-1-1 communications system is decades old, said Maria Jacques, director of emergency services communications bureau for the PUC.
“The old system is maxed out. It can only handle a small amount of information, not text information. It’s nearing the end of its useful life,” she said.
The contract is for the network, database, and equipment, Jacques said. Bids were required to be compliant with federal disability laws and National Emergency Number Association guidelines, which requires providing direct access to people who use telecommunications devices for the deaf.
In Knox County, the relocation of the communications center has been put on hold until the state contract is settled.
The Knox dispatch center wants to wait until the state digital 9-1-1 system is in place so it does not have to move its existing analog system — at a cost of $50,000.
Knox County Regional Communications Center Director Linwood Lothrop told the Knox County Commissioners earlier this month that, while he is fully supportive of the upgrade, he is concerned about the lack of information provided by the state.
“For 9-1-1 calls, regional dispatch is where the rubber meets the road,” Lothrop said. “They don’t tell us much and we are left in the dark.”
The division of purchasing from the Maine Bureau of General Services will hold appeal hearings Aug. 29 through Aug. 31.
i sure hope their 9-1-1 service is a lot better than their internet service.. Mine was so bad i went to time warner cable roadrunner.. 50 times better!!! and costs less..
Same here!—
They won the 911 bid because PUC was looking for the best provider. So, FairPoint has proven to be so adept at providing state-of-art services and upgrading systems? What a laugh.
Fairpoint is the best NOW.. not 3 yrs ago.
PUC transparent?.. I believe Angus King has them on his purse strings.
The law allow the PUC to take gratuities from these people and don’t have to report them until they retire. They also can invest in the companies the regulate.
Sure let’s give the 911 contract to a company that failed and still fails to this day as a phone company since the Verizon take over. Actually I take that back, Failed since they took over small ILECs like ComTel, etc
Good call Maine.
I can’t believe I am saying this but I miss CommTel. The service wasn’t always the best but atleast they worked to correct it
We used to have Fairpoint. We canceled and went with Time Warner. We had an outstanding credit with Fairpoint. They kept mailing us every month to let us know. We called every month to cancel it, and they kept sending out the letters.
It took us two years of calling monthly to get them to send us a check for $9.00. Twenty four times we had to call their office, explain the situation, and request they fix it. We even offered to give up the $9.00 if they would stop filling our inbox with notifications of credit. It was nuts!
East Coast California at it’s best. Crooked is as crooked does
Boston North
But the all the lines on the poles for phone and switching controls are owned by FairPoint, not any of those other companies. Verizon gave them a raw deal I think and tried to take the money and run. 1st bankrupsy-Verizon sold to Hawaii Telecom, 2nd, sold phone books to Idearc, 3rd FairPoint and now watch, Frontier taking over the midwest Verizon lines will be next.
not true….Oxford Networks built their OWN fiber on those poles. They have been builing over the top of Fairpoints copper with their own fiber for a decade.
Is it true that Angus King’s sister-in-law works at the Maine PUC?
The PUC commissioners have been overruling their own staff recommendations to bend the law for large corporations in the electricity area. When you study it carefully and then see the decisions that are rendered and the totally lame reasons cited by the commissioners, it makes any reasonable person ask the question “is someone on the take”. Two examples – the CMP upgrade was approved which hands Iberdrola something like $100 million a year. PUC staff had recommended against and also said it could have been done for less than half the money.
Then recently, the PUC OK’d the merger of an energy transmitter (Emera) and an energy generator (First Wind). It is illegal in Maine for a company to be both transmitter and generator but the PUC commissioners bent the law. The PUC chair cited “jobs”. Since when is “jobs” within the jurisdiction of the PUC.
Commissioner David Littell is also chairman of the northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) . At the PUC he is required to ensure fair and reasonable rates. At RGGI he is required to sove costly wind power and wind transmission down our throats.
Transmission rates went up by 19.6% for CMP customers on July 1 and the PUC blamed this on the Feds. In fact, it was due to PUCs’ approval of transmission upgrades which are required solely for wind power. Why the cover-up PUC? Most Mainers don’t have any idea that transmission rates on their bills rose by 19.6% because it has been hidden by other parts of the bill going down due to natural gas prices. They decided this was the time to sneak it in.
Kurt Adams, who had been Baladacci’s chief counsel and then his PUC chairman greased the skids for the wind required transmission upgrades that have caused our rates to skyrocket – and they have only begun to do so. Baldacci told us the upgrades were due to aging lines and population growth and both have been disproved. It was all about wind, although the PUC continues to cover up for the wind industry. In any event, while Kurt Adams was PUC chair, he was interviewing with First Wind for a period of months. Then, while PUC chair, he took over $1 million in stock options from First Wind. He then resigned a month later and took a job at First Wind to become Director of Transmission. You cannot make this stuff up.
Citizens demanded an investigation and Baldacci’s Attorney General Janet Mills conducted a secret kangaroo investigation and ruled that the PUC chair who greased the skids for wind-required transmission was perfectly in his rights to accept the $1 million plus in stock options and then later go work for a wind company as transmission director. Mills’ sister Dora Mills was Baldacci’s public health director who said that there were no peer reviewed studies that wind turbines on top of people’s homes were injurious to human health, when in fact, there was.
The Angus King and John Baldacci administrations were dank, corrupt theft-fests where the insiders trampled citizen rights and betrayed the people. The MPUC is a stunning example of this corruption and why Maine is ranked at the bottom of the the states in terms of ethics.
Google: “What every Maine ratepayer needs to know”.
Information wants to be free. It is not if, but simply when we bring the PUC down and jail sentences are handed out. The toothpaste is not going back in the tube fellas.
$6,000,000.00+ cheaper and they were not looked at. This is not pocket change, not even close. I might understand if the bids were close and they were concerned that the people in place know the system but 6 million plus, come on, something is rotten.
and the Oxford Networks people are local, right here in Bangor. I have no idea where the Fairpoint office is. They even build fiber to little businesses…..FIBER!
fairpoint needs the money.
They are just giving Fairpoint extra money with this to avoid another bankruptcy, the state really doesn’t want to take the time to find a reasonable company to operate phone service.
This PUC has proven again that it cannot be trusted to make
decisions in the Public’s interest.
Too many Baldacci appointees are still controlling the system
for the benefit of special interests.
Littell was Baldacci’s heavy thumb who made sure the Board of
Environmental Protection always ruled in the developers favor on wind power
matters.
He should not be in a position of public trust!
The PUC is overdue for some major housecleaning, starting at the top. Lepage has stacked it all to heavily favor business, completely disregarding the fact that it is also supposed to represent consumers. Almost all of the commissioners are former lawyers from the Pierce-Atwood law firm which represents….CMP. No conflict there, eh?
Maine’s PUC is just another example of the smelliest (mis)administration in Maine’s history.
PUC decisions are directly related to the number of ex-PUC employees on the payroll for the favored company and to the legal firm involved in the transaction. Costs and quality are secondary factors to “confidence” in past performance. PUC lawyers know their rules and take advantage of historical policies.
Fairpoint, what a laugh. I had them scheduled for phone hookup in a new place a few years ago, needed for my job, and they never came, kept promising but never came. So, I never got service but they BILLED me for it for a year. Multiple calls and speaking to managers, they finally corrected the bill to zero, as I never did get service. I’ll never use them again.
PUC Chairman Welch was first appointed by McKernan in 1993. Dumped by Baldacci in 2005 when Welch’s the term expired , reappointed by LaPage in 2011: Thomas L. Welch, Chairman
Tom Welch was appointed to the Maine Public Utilities Commission as Chair in April 2011. He had previously served as Chair of the Commission from 1993-2005. Between his Commission appointments, Commissioner Welch worked for PJM Interconnection, a Pennsylvania-based Regional Transmission Organization, and for five years was an attorney at Pierce Atwood, LLP, in Portland, Maine, specializing in energy and utility law. Before moving to Maine in 1993, he served as Chief Deputy Attorney General for Antitrust in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, in-house counsel for Bell Atlantic, and Assistant Professor at Villanova University School of Law. Commissioner Welch graduated from Stanford University in 1972 and received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1975. His term on the Commission expires March 2017.
Baldacci stuck his best buddy Jack “Hack” Cashman on PUC.
Anyone who uses Fairpoint would be smart to examine their bill carefully EVERY month.The often double bill.
The PUC commissioners need to be replaced with creditably new people. We the people of Maine do not want people appointed based upon political favors, or any other type of favor. It is way past the time to do some house cleaning.
I still think they should take the Public out of the PUC.
These are very comments which refer to reflections on past practices. A public power authority should be formed to establish a balance with private developers who use our electric utilities to their advantage. With a responsive public power authority wind projects would be judged on their merits while protecting the rights of the public and attempting to reduce the cost of electricity instead of maintaining the status quo.
FAIRPOINT COMMUNICATIONS, INC. POLITCAL ACTION COMMITTEE gave all it’s money to Republican candidates in 2010 and has $6300 so far this year which it has not yet given away. ;)
http://www.opensecrets.org/pac…
The public needs to know of Maine PUC’s reasoning which would allow it to purchase the Fairpoint system which is 6M more costly than either of the next two qualified bidders……. Ridiculous…… To date, no explanation, no investigation…………..What is going on.
Gee and all these years I thought the PUC was out to shaft only the people of Maine, now that they have given us some of the highest utilities in the country I guess they decided why not spread the love and give it to a great Maine company like Oxford Networks as well.
Most of these people don’t have a clue about the 911 system and the network thats supports it. Lowest bidder is not always the way to go. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for!!!