County gives 911 contract to Warner Communications after objections

Despite objections and issues with the Missouri Sunshine Law, the Cape Girardeau County Commission voted 3-0 Thursday to enter into a written contract with the St. Louis-based company Warner Communications Corp. for the upgrades to and relocation of the 911 radio dispatch system in Cape Girardeau. The commission followed the recommendation of the Cape Girardeau County Enhanced 911 Advisory Board in its decision.

The vote came after weeks of objections to how the requests for proposal were made and handled by the county.

Much of the confusion stemmed from the fact that the county initially listed the radio dispatch system as a request for bid and advertised it as such. The county later readvertised the dispatch system as a request for proposal.

A request for bid indicates a price for a specific service. A request for proposal allows for several services at different prices.

Three companies submitted proposals to the county: Warner Communications, the Cape Girardeau-based JCS/Tel-Link (a Motorola franchise dealer) and E.F. Johnson Velocity.

The cost of the final proposal by Warner was substantially lower than the two bids by the other companies. In a letter dated June 9 from the 911 advisory board to the county commission, the board outlined that the bid by Warner was $236,496.88 while the bid from JCS/Tel-Link was $501,989.24 for an upgrade to existing equipment and $556,971.24 for new equipment. The proposal from E.F. Johnson Velocity was $428,760.00.

Reg Swan, co-owner of JCS/Tel-Link, went to the commission July 3 with a binder full of questions about and objections to the Warner proposal. He said a piece of equipment Warner's proposal stated was nonexistent is being used in at least three other places in Missouri. He also cited the more than 550 uses of the words and phrases "must," "must include" and "shall" in the initial request as indications the county was asking for a more specific request for bid.

At the commission meeting Thursday, JCS/Tel-Link and Motorola presented the commission with a letter that again outlined the company's objections.

Swan said he was disappointed in the commission's action. He said the result of the action will be mismatched systems that will have trouble working together.

"They have thrown out their specifications," he said. "It appears that specs in this county mean nothing. The system was purchased based on cost at the compromise of safety."

Richard Knaup, emergency operations director for the county, said the Motorola plan was too expensive and he was satisfied with the commission's decision. He said the proposal from Warner was better than the one from Motorola because the entire system would keep functioning if a problem occurred with a single machine. Under the Motorola proposal, the entire communications center could be disabled by "a single point of failure," according to Knaup.

However, Knaup acknowledged no one on the E911 board has the expertise to evaluate the technical specifications of Warner's proposal; but he said that was not a significant problem and dismissed Swan's concerns as irrelevant to the decision.

In its selection of Warner Communications, the commission followed the recommendation of the E911 board. However, the way in which the board's decision was reached raised concerns with Missouri's Sunshine Law. Knaup said no formal meeting was conducted by the 911 board to come to a final decision. Instead, he said he went to each board member individually for discussion, and each signed a letter to be presented to the commission Thursday affirming their selection of Warner.

The Missouri Open Meetings and Records Law, known as the Sunshine Law, requires that boards and commissions make their decisions in formal meetings posted at least 24 hours in advance.

Knaup said he had no intention to violate the Sunshine Law in the way he gathered signatures on the letter.

"I was doing as I was asked by the county commission to submit a letter," he said. "We had already made our recommendation. I tried to hide nothing. We do nothing behind closed doors."

tthomas@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 197

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126

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