Documenting Instanity

Denver Airport in the News Again

It really seems like the city of Denver doesn't do much of anything well. They have now taken the contract for the payphones at DIA away from the current carrier, FHS, and given it to RMES. FHS is alleging that the contract process was unfair. It gets better. Check out these quotes from the Denver Post article.

FSH proposed to give the city 30 percent of its projected gross sales, resulting in estimated payments of $476,875 the first year and $410,713 the next. Verizon Communications Inc. offered 15 percent of its sales. RMES Communications offered 16 percent.
RMES will generate $360,000 for the city over the next three years, according to the contract. The money goes to the airport fund.

This makes very little sense but those are the cold hard facts. Charging consumers the same amount of money to the consumer the folks who were going to give the biggest slice of the revenue to the city does not get the contract. Fishy! Here come the allegations and the response.... which is the funny part.

FSH contends it would it have given the city the highest commissions and alleges the head of the city's small-business opportunity office, Tamela Lee, favored RMES because she knew the owner. The company also claims there was a conflict of interest because Lee and her brother-in-law, City Councilman Michael Hancock, both participated in the contractor evaluation.

So they think that a city employee and a councilman (who just happen to be closely related) threw a little business to a friend at the city's expense. Nobody is going to believe that. Never, ever happens. But on to the response.

The city said the commission was only one of 11 factors used to evaluate the proposals. It said it denied both FSH's and Verizon's proposals because they didn't adequately address Disadvantaged Business Enterprise requirements.

Now, I have never been a fan of using the race/gender of small business owners in considering handing out city contracts. It is bad business IMO. But this is where the funny part comes in..... wait for it......

"FHS is owned by three African-American men, and they are being thrown out because of disadvantaged business requirements? That doesn't make sense," Hudson said.

Have a nice day!

posted by mailgeek @ 3:41 PM