From the Montrose Daily Press: By Katharhynn Heidelberg Daily Press Senior Writer
Aviation Director Lloyd Arnold was attempting to abide by Montrose County’s procurement policy when he denied certain open records requests, it was said during testy exchanges in court Friday.
But Jet Center Partners, which wants a court order compelling the release of information related to Majestic Skies’ request for proposals document, indicated through its attorney strong doubts that the procurement policy itself complied with the Colorado Open Records Act, or that the county necessarily complied with its own policy.
Attorney Steve Zansberg quizzed Arnold as to just how long Montrose County may have been entertaining Majestic Skies as a second fixed-base operator (FBO) at Montrose Regional Airport and if all records sought under Jet Center Partners’ CORA requests had in fact been provided.
Jet Center Partners operates Black Canyon Jet Center as the airport’s FBO, serving general aviation.
The county last year announced a request for proposals, or RFP, process for a possible second on-airport FBO, but citing its procurement policy would not initially release the names of the businesses that responded to the RFP, or copies of any proposals actually received.
The county announced on Jan. 21 that it had received proposals from Majestic and Telksi, but that only Majestic’s proposal met the airport’s minimum standards. The county has not released the RFP and in court Friday said it cannot until after a contract has been signed, due to confidentiality provisions in its procurement policy.
Jet Center Partners filed CORA requests on Dec. 5, 2013 and Jan. 6, 2014 for the release of a host of records, including the RFP and — at the time — the names of respondents who submitted RFPs. Mediation earlier this month failed, putting the parties into District Judge James Schums’ court Friday.
“The issue is very simple,” said county special counsel Bobee Musgrave. “Did the county comply with CORA obligations? The answer is yes, the county did comply,” she said.
Montrose County provided what documents it had that were responsive to the Dec. 5, 2013 CORA; other records did not exist and so, were not supplied, and a small number are exempt from CORA, Musgrave said.
State law and the state procurement code trump CORA when the two conflict, court statements indicated.
The county’s procurement policy is modeled after the state code.
Yet it is also the county’s position that its procurement policy holds sway over state code when the two conflict, Arnold indicated later, under Zansberg’s questioning.
Zansberg asked if the county could declare non-public what the state procurement code would declare public; Arnold said yes.
Arnold said that as to the Dec. 5, 2013 CORA request, he did not provide the proposals received, information as to the evaluation process or the names that were later made public.
“It’s consistent with the procurement policy,” with which he was trying to comply, he said.
Arnold said the policy exists to ensure the integrity of closed bidding processes.
“Given history, we wanted to strictly adhere to the process. We assumed we would be up here today,” Arnold said.
“ … I asked my staff to keep communications down to what was necessary.”
He indicated that he and others wanted to protect the process from undue influence from outside sources.
“We know that’s happening right now,” Arnold said.
He later referred to a letter JCP had sent to members of the community concerning Majestic.
“This is what the procurement policy is trying to prohibit — undue influence. In my option, it’s trying to derail the procurement process,” he said.
Arnold said he wasn’t at liberty to release the names prior to Jan. 21, and after that time, the proposal remained confidential.
The documents are to be made available at the end of the process, if a contract is signed.
If no contract is signed, the documents would be “shredded,” he said, later clarifying that he meant the document isn’t public if no contract comes about.
The procurement policy says that records are to be retained for a minimum of three years, Zansberg said; Arnold said he didn’t recall whether that was the case.
(Schum kept a tight rein on proceedings, refusing to allow attorneys to have witnesses testify as to what exhibits actually said; he will read them himself.)
The procurement policy spells out that documents received as part of an RFP shall be released, including information that can be deemed confidential, Zansberg said.
The document in totality protects the integrity of the process, Arnold said.
To shield the public from being able to have undue influence? Zansberg asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Arnold said.
He also said the county’s evaluation committee hadn’t exerted undue influence, but that commissioners only received the end product of the review, which pertained to minimum airport standards.
Zansberg referred Arnold to an exhibit showing an email chain between county officials.
There were also discussions for an on-demand charter service with Majestic after a June 2013 contact.
Arnold said under questioning from Schum that he hadn’t realized JCP’s records request for internal communications between county officials and “others” meant outside parties.
“If I’d thought they were, I would have provided those,” he said.
The charter discussions might have fallen under that, however, because these contained the name of a proposer, Arnold said he could not release them.
There was no RFP in June, but there wasn’t a CORA request at the time, either, he said.
The county did not consider releasing the record with the name redacted.
Zansberg attempted to have newspaper articles admitted as evidence to show community interest.
Arnold during his testimony said that in his entire career, he has only been accurately quoted “one time” and that articles are “subjective.”
Arnold indicated that he couldn’t call whether the county had notified Telski of its failed proposal prior to the Jan. 21 meeting, or whether representatives were sent to meet with Telski.
An email Zansberg referred to reportedly mentions a Dec. 16, 2013 meeting between commissioners and Majestic.
Jet Center Partners’ Jan. 6 CORA request sought information pertaining to RFP records that may have been contained on the personal electronic devices of county commissioners and an RFP evaluation committee; Musgrave said during her opening statements that a search revealed none.
Zansberg while questioning Arnold brought up emails Commissioner David White reportedly had sent to the county spokeswoman from a non-county address, as well as emails from other county officials to non-county addresses and an email from White to the hotmail address of county fleet manager David Laursen, who had been part of the review committee.
Zansberg asked if Arnold was aware of other emails from personal accounts.
Arnold replied that he wasn’t copied on them, and also questioned how emails reportedly referring to Daily Press Publisher Francis Wick pertained to county business.
Zansberg honed in on an email reportedly from Arnold to Majestic’s principal Larry Danielle from December. The email asked Danielle to identify areas of his proposal that are confidential, because they would otherwise be public and subject to a public presentation to be given by Majestic, it was indicated in court.
A second email concerned minimum standards.
Danielle provided two responses, but only one response was in the exhibit Arnold was reviewing and he said he didn’t know if it pertained to the standards or confidentiality.
“Nor do we,” said Zansberg.
The attorney asked whether Arnold had committed to providing a list of airline contacts to Robert Valentine of Majestic.
“What does this have to do with a CORA request?” Arnold asked, echoing the gist of several objections Musgrave raised throughout proceedings.
“You don’t get to ask that,” Schum said.
Witnesses can’t ask questions.
Arnold said he recalled a request for the list, but was “almost positive” he had not provided the information.
Jet Center Partners manager Ken Watson took the stand Friday before Arnold’s testimony. He said JCP had last spring talked with Majestic about making Montrose the western base for its charter company.
JCP became aware prior to public disclosure of RFP submitters’ names that the county might be in talks with Majestic, testimony indicated.
Schum is expected to issue a written ruling after closing arguments, which were continued until June 9.
This article was reprinted in its entirely with the newspaper’s permission.