Going Against The Establishment

Was A Responsible Decision

To the Editor:

I would like to thank the Board of Education for making the responsible decision in awarding our bus contract to the lowest able bidder. Finally we have a Board of Education who is courageous enough to go against the entrenched political establishment who in the past has ignored Newtown’s long established policy. The Board of Education has saved this town $500,000 in the first year of the new bus contract and $1.5 million over five years.

When someone writes the recent history of Newtown, I hope they will answer the question of “Why did Newtown, for decades, never follow town policy in regard to bidding out the school transportation contract?”

Since 1983, Newtown policy has been to bid out a contract over a certain dollar amount (it is now $13,000) and award the bid to the lowest able bidder. Politicians who held office in the past have allowed today’s situation to develop by choosing to ignore town policy. It’s not the owner-operators’ fault; they didn’t create this system. It’s the past political establishment who, by ignoring town policy, created this situation.

Why has our bidding process never applied to the owner-operators’? How was this political chicanery allowed to continue for decades? When we repair our public buildings and roads we bid out the contract and award that contract to the lowest able bidder. Why were Newtown taxpaying contractors, painters, carpenters, or construction workers not provided this favored employment status whereby contracts are awarded without consideration to cost? Why have the owner-operators’ developed this favored employment status?

I would have preferred to maintain the owner-operators as our transportation provider. I wish their bid had been more competitive with the other bids; however, their bid was considerably higher.

The only thing that comes to mind that equals this in history is the aviation industry. Beginning in the 1940s and continuing until the late 1970s, the airline industry was ruled by a government agency called the Civil Aeronautics Board. The CAB awarded routes to airlines. Airlines didn’t compete on these routes, these airlines had exclusive “ownership” of these routes. There was no competition as to how much a passenger would pay to travel on that route. The fare was requested by the airline and set by the federal government without regard to competitive costs. This federal government regulation of the airline industry ended in 1978. Now, airlines must compete on costs and set prices based on what the market will bear.

This same sort of system of the local government setting transportation costs existed in Newtown until Tuesday night.

Charles Hepp

4 Winter Ridge Road, Sandy Hook                       September 7, 2011