CERWD Denies The Obvious on FOIA Responses –

OLIVER, IL. (ECWd) –

During the October meeting of the Clark-Edgar Rural Water District (CERWD) the Engineer Firm Representative, Bob Colvin of Francis Associates in Paris, talked about the awarding of another contract to B & T Drainage.

During that conversation, Bob stated that he had talked to a bidder during the bid process for the contract in question by saying: “When I talked to John, uh, a couple times during the bid, he said price, uh, pipe prices weren’t up at all. Meters, all that stuff’s up drastically, but, uh, mainline pipe is not up, so, again, he was one point two percent…”

Anyone remotely familiar with bidding processes for public contracts should know that communications between bidders and the public body (or their representative) during the bidding process is not allowed unless it is for some type of clarification, and all bidding entities are made aware of the converstations, and a detailed log is kept.

In an attempt at figuring out if other bidders were aware of these conversations, I requested all information and records relating to the above referenced conversation(s), the reply was that to the CERWD knowledge no communication existed. I then asked them to ask the engineer firm about any communications and the same answer was given.

So my question here, is how can the person representing the CERWD make an unsolicited comment, during a public meeting, that he did in fact talk to B&T during the bidding process, turn around and deny any communication(s) existed.

Here is that portion of the audio from the October meeting – you decide.