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PRIEST RIVER — The West Bonner County School District board hosted a hotly contested debate between two companies vying for the district’s business at its July 20 meeting. Board clerk Jennifer Phillips said she sent out requests for proposals to three companies regarding the contract for supplying copying machines to the school district: Pacific Office Automation, Fortress Business Systems, and Royal Business Systems. She showed board members score sheets for each company at the July 20 meeting, which ranked each company across multiple categories including whether they were local to North Idaho, the productivity of their machines, and their bid prices. “Based on that, the contract was awarded to Pacific, subject to board approval,” she said. Pacific Office and Fortress Business Systems sent representatives to the July 20 meeting. Fortress had formally protested the bid award prior to the meeting.

Given the stack of documents submitted regarding the bid, board member Margaret Hall asked to table the issue and set a special meeting to consider the matter. However, after a short break, the two companies made their case before the board. At its heart, the dispute was over whether the two companies received the right scores.

Fortress had sent in a bid of $94,506, while the current vendor Pacific had submitted a bid of $96,855. The bids are rough estimates that don’t account for all actual use of the machines, Phillips explained. “Copier leases have a click rate component, meaning the more we print the more we are charged.” Based on the bid prices, expected use, and other factors, Pacific ended up with the highest score.

Fortress representative Jerod Keyser said his company is based in Idaho, has an office in Post Falls, has an employee that lives in Priest River, and had the bid with the lowest price. Pacific, on the other hand, he said is based in Portland and is closing its Post Falls location and relocating to Spokane, according to what he has heard from other employees and a local realtor. Consequently, he asked that Pacific receive zero points for being based locally. He also said that the model chosen by the model his company was rated too low for the model it proposed to use -- a Samsung monochrome -- and that his company shouldn’t be rated low because people in the school district aren’t familiar with the industry. The machines are also run identically to a Samsung smartphone, which makes them additionally customer-friendly.

Brower said Fortress’ school district references were lacking, to which Fortress rep Keyser said his company had plenty of references among private businesses and independent schools, but not school district references. “The school district is either going to do business with the cheapest vendor, based in Idaho, or the next-cheapest vendor, who happens to be the current vendor, based in Portland, Oregon.”

Pacific branch manager Darren Bruhns and company representative Todd Trengove contradicted Keyser’s assertions. “We have an office in Post Falls, live in Post Falls, will always be in Post Falls,” said Trengove. They have outgrown the current office and are looking to move into a bigger place, he said. “We exceeded expectations in the school district and have references in North Idaho such as North Idaho College and Post Falls School District,” said Trengove.

Bruhns pointed out that his branch is committed to the people they serve. As opposed to being controlled by headquarters in distant Oregon, he said “I have autonomy to put money back into the local community.” He also said that interfacing with a Samsung phone is not important. The interface is almost identical, he said. “There’s not going to be a learning curve with walking up to a new machine you have no idea how to use.” As far as being in North Idaho goes, he said, “We’re busting at the seams and we have to find new space. We’re not leaving the North Idaho market -- at all.”

Hall asked Phillips to read the language regarding references. Phillips said it referred to “school entities.” Hall said the phrase was ambiguous, and that Fortress could have gotten references from the school entities it provided with machines. Brower asked, “Why didn’t Fortress bring those references?” Keyser said he had assumed they wouldn’t want them, to which Brower replied, “You know what happens when you assume?”

Anselmo intervened to say that the time to dispute any language in the request for proposals was before bidding closed. Phillips concurred. Hall said that if this issue had come before the county planning and zoning commission on which she serves, the board would have tabled the issue and sifted through the information prior to coming to a meeting. Brower said the board could do that, or could make a decision that night. In response to further accusations by Fortress that Pacific was moving out, Bruhns said, “Seventy-five percent of our employees work out of our Post Falls office. Half of our employees live in Idaho and pay Idaho taxes. We’re always going to have an office in North Idaho. This is a lot of hearsay.” Brower said, “In fairness, we’ll go ahead and table it.” The board scheduled a special meeting for July 27 at 6 p.m.

http://www.priestrivertimes.co...27/ARTICLE/160729975

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