Routine firetruck bid takes a nasty turn

By Tristram DeRoma , Bard Editor
12/12/2008

Investigators hired by the town to investigate aberrations in the Stratford Fire Department's bid for a firetruck are accusing the department's fire chief of skewing the bid results. The report infers department officials manipulated the results in order get the firetruck they wanted from a local dealer instead of going by the bidder that allegedly had a less expensive truck with the same qualifications.

Investigators hired by the town to investigate aberrations in the Stratford Fire Department's bid for a firetruck are accusing the department's fire chief of skewing the bid results. The report infers department officials manipulated the results in order get the firetruck they wanted from a local dealer instead of going by the bidder that allegedly had a less expensive truck with the same qualifications.

Though investigators were also aware that the owner of the company that had the "winning bid" was also a former town official, it said it could find no evidence the favoritism involved corruption.

Apparently, the report concluded, Fire Chief John Cybart allegedly favored a "Smeal Rescue Pumper," and the report accuses him of skewing the bid process in order to obtain it.

"If any 'steering' of the bid process toward New England Fire Equipment (the town official's company) took place, it was more likely motivated by this favorable predisposition toward the Smeal, and not by any possible financial benefit to a member of the committee or their associates," said Alan Laske in the report. Laske a principal in the Fairfield investigative firm LaskeBrown LLC, the firm that did the investigation. "In fact, no such financial or other improper motive was discovered in the course of this investigation. Nevertheless, the presence of a predisposition towards a particular brand in a public bid process that can arguably be alleged to result in the acceptance of a bid that is not the 'lowest qualified' bid is improper."

Cybart has apparently taken leave shortly after the results were released, and could not be reached for comment. He will learn his fate Jan. 7, when town officials, including the mayor, will meet with him to wrap up the investigation. While the report mainly holds him responsible for the bid's failure, it will be Miron that will decide if the chief, who the report names as the main overseer of the bid, be fired, demoted or receive some other disciplinary action.

The report said that Cybart is mainly responsible for the fatal errors that ultimately caused the town to throw out the bids and do the process over.

The report accuses Cybart of letting a fire department employee, who was also a part-time employee of a local firetruck dealership that had the truck the department allegedly wanted, control and ultimately oversee the entire bidding process.

"Chief Cybart bears ultimate responsibility for the failure of this process," concluded the report. "While he hoped that assigning the bid process to the Assistant Chief (Daniel Ross) would serve to educate Ross, in doing so he created a process in which Ross would have to rely on the participation of any other officers assigned to the bid process by Chief Cybart."

Apparently, the report continued, this lack of experience on Ross's behalf allowed firefighter Lt. Robert Spiegel, who was also a part-time mechanic with New England Fire Apparatus, to make all the key decisions regarding the bids, including picking the winner. NEFA offered the department a "Speal Rescue Pumper," a truck Cybart allegedly favored, even though NEFA was not the lowest bidder.

The report further concludes that Cybart further eroded bidding process' integrity by not bothering to thoroughly investigate Spiegel's conclusions, and limiting the number of people on the bidding committee.

"Further, although Cybart acknowledged that Lt. Spiegel was not going to be the person making the decision on behalf of the department, no effort was made by Cybart to independently verify or require the independent verification of any of Spiegel's conclusions," Laske said in the report. "It was Cybart's opinion that he did not want to have a large committee involved in the selection process, and he made a conscious decision to limit the number of individuals involved in the bid drafting and bid review process. In doing so it appears the process of developing a quality bid suffered, as did the process of objectively and fairly reviewing the bids received."

Laske's report further states that when his investigators asked Cybart directly about the bidding process, he was "unable to effectively articulate the reasons why the lowest bid did not qualify and was unaware that the third lowest bid was actually lower than the bid Chief Cybart represented to Stratford Chief Administrative Officer Suzanne McCauley as being the second lowest bid."

James Feehan, said he had no knowledge of the investigation.

"All I can tell you is that our company submitted a bid with eight other companies," he said. "We have no knowledge of any investigations, I don't know what's going on with it. I'm no longer in politics, so I don't concern myself with the comings and goings of the town anymore." Feehan further stated the only communication he received from the town was a letter stating all bids had been rejected.

He also said that while he knew Spiegel was on the committee, he was against the appointment, but couldn't do anything about it because the Stratford Fire Department is Spiegel's primary employer.

"I don't know why he appointed him," said Feehan of Cybart's decision. "That just doesn't make any sense."

When asked if he could have prevented it, Feehan said no, all he could do, at least when it came to part-time employees who also work for him' is to caution them when trying to serve two masters.

From his standpoint, it wouldn't make much business sense to regularly sabotage the bidding process with alleged conflict-of-interest issues, he said.

"We are involved in over 350 departments in the New England states," said Feehan. "We consistently tell our employees that if there's any bid that we submitted to their departments to definitely recuse themselves from any type of involvement with our bids."

On the other hand, he said, he is somewhat helpless when a fire chief orders a firefighter to serve on a bidding committee.

"First off, I have no less than 25 employees that work for my company, and some of them are on a part-time basis." Feehan said. "What they are ordered to do and told to do by their key employer I have no influence over. I can further say that we weren't even allowed a meeting with this committee. We submitted a bid, left it there, and that was that."

But, Feehan said, he did what he could do to end the association. "I told him to advise the fire chief and the administration that he was employed by our company and he did that at all times, and they still kept him on," he said.

While Ross was also cited as "contributing significantly to the failure of the bid process," he as well as Spiegel were also cleared of corruption charges.

"With regard to Spiegel, there is no evidence that his recommendation of the Smeal bid made by his part-time employer, New England Fire Equipment, would have resulted in any personal financial benefit," said Laske in the report.