BARTON — Town officials earlier this month accepted a late bid for winter road sanding services over one that met the advertised deadline, spurring a dustup Tuesday night that ended with the contract going out to bid again.
“It sounds like the Barton Selectboard dropped the ball, and we’re going to pay the price for it,” said Deana Cowles, wife of Richard Labrecque, whose company submitted the on-time bid.
The Selectboard sought bids last month to lay down 5,000 yards of winter sand in town with an Aug. 20 deadline. Labrecque Sand and Gravel was the only bidder to meet that deadline, offering a rate of $5.25 per yard, records show.
But board members never brought up the bid at their Aug. 20 meeting. It was not on the agenda.
The offer instead appeared on the board’s Sept. 17 meeting agenda — along with another bid, from Couture Trucking, for a rate of $5 per yard. Records show the second bid was signed by Jean Couture on Sept. 9, almost three weeks after the deadline. The difference between the bids would have amounted to $1,250.
Neither bid envelope was dated, Selectboard Chair Bob Croteau said Tuesday, so the board voted at the Sept. 17 meeting to accept the lower price.
The board — which, since a member resigned in August, currently comprises just two people — ultimately decided Tuesday to rescind the agreement and re-do the bidding process, with an Oct. 15 deadline. But the decision came only after heated discussion between officials and onlookers, who questioned why the first bid was left off the agenda.
The back-and-forth was the latest round of criticism for a board already facing ethics questions this year.
Croteau said repeatedly that he didn’t know why the Labrecque bid never appeared on the agenda for Aug. 20, when it was supposed to be discussed.
He said that he didn’t know the Couture bid was late when the board voted on it and that he didn’t even know about the second bid until the Sept. 17 meeting.
Croteau’s answers didn’t satisfy the audience, made up of members of the Labrecque family.
“The point still is, the bid wasn’t in on time,” Richard Labrecque said. “When it says in the paper (that the bid is) to be on time, it’s to be on time.”
He continued: “It shouldn’t have been even on the table.”
Board member Doug Swanson also revealed that he had had “a conversation” with Couture on Sept. 13 — four days before the bids were open — while inspecting sand at the Couture pit. Swanson later said the town attorney advised that no Selectboard member should communicate with a potential bidder while the board solicits bids.
Croteau and Swanson spent about 25 minutes discussing how to move forward. Swanson proposed rescinding the accepted bid and re-advertising, which Croteau protested.
“I don’t think that we have to go to a bid process,” the chairman said.
He argued that the board should make a decision about sand services that night, because by the time another bidding process would be finished, it’d be mid-October — far behind the typical schedule for putting sand on roads before winter.
Swanson said the town’s attorney had advised him that the board should re-do the process. “I think that’s our legal obligation,” he said.
When Swanson asked Croteau what his alternative proposal would be, Croteau looked down at his hands and didn’t answer for about 30 seconds.
Croteau said that if Swanson was set on holding another bidding process, the board should try to wrap it up that week. As the two discussed whether that would be possible, audience members again questioned Croteau.
“We’ve all asked you several questions,” said Heather Labrecque, who is married to Richard Labrecque’s son, Cole. “You’ve only answered the ones that are convenient for you to answer.”
She said that the board should give her father-in-law the opportunity to beat out the cheaper bid. Croteau said no.
Audience members grew frustrated with the deliberations.
“It’s his life that’s being changed here, not yours,” Heather Labrecque said at one point, referring to her father-in-law.
Croteau tried to squash the fray. “This is not a public forum,” he said. “It’s an open meeting of the Selectboard, not an open meeting of the public.”
Swanson suggested the board could wait to move on the issue until a third member is elected on Oct. 8 to fill the vacancy left by member Paul Sicard’s resignation in August, as Cowles had earlier said.
Croteau rejected the idea. “We’ll be hauling sand in freezing weather,” he said.
But with Swanson firm about following the attorney’s advice, the two decided to advertise another bidding process in newspapers in the coming week. The Oct. 15 deadline comes on the day of a board meeting.
“We’re trying to correct a wrong by making sure (the process is) correct,” Swanson said after the vote.
