Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman upheld yesterday the Procurement and Supply director\u2019s decision to award the Department of Public Works\u2019 traffic signal upgrade project to Radiocom Saipan Inc.<\/p>\n
Wiseman determined that the Office of the Public Auditor did not make a mistake in denying the appeal of one of the bidders, Maeda Pacific Corp.<\/p>\n
The judge also ruled that the Procurement and Supply director\u2019s decision was not arbitrary or capricious.<\/p>\n
Wiseman said OPA\u2019s decision was well-reasoned, and that he supports and upholds its decision to give deference to the procuring agency in the absence of any evidence showing bad faith, fraud, bias, or conflict of interest.<\/p>\n
Wiseman said he sees no reason to believe that Procurement and Supply lacked a reasonable basis for its decision to find Radiocom\u2019s bid as being unreasonable and without sufficient reason to question OPA\u2019s decision reviewing the Commonwealth\u2019s evaluation.<\/p>\n
The judge upheld OPA\u2019s finding that the price evaluation of Radiocom\u2019s bid was not unreasonable.<\/p>\n
Wiseman agreed with OPA that Maeda has failed to provide any evidence that would cast any shadow of a doubt on Radiocom\u2019s ability to obtain the necessary equipment or facilities to perform the work the contract provides for.<\/p>\n
Thus, Wiseman said, the Procurement and Supply director\u2019s determination and OPA\u2019s decision on Maeda\u2019s protest do not rise to the level of arbitrary and capricious.<\/p>\n
According to court records, Radiocom Saipan Inc. and Maeda Pacific Corp. were among those that responded to an invitation for bids on the traffic signal upgrade project. <\/p>\n
After the bidding was closed, the director of Procurement and Supply announced its intent to award the winning bid to Radiocom, which was the lowest bidder at $1.4 million.<\/p>\n
Maeda protested with the director of Procurement and Supply. After the director denied the protest, Maeda appealed to the Office of the Public Auditor.<\/p>\n
OPA ruled against Maeda on May 10, 2013. Maeda, through counsel Juan T. Lizama, appealed that decision to the Superior Court.<\/p>\n
Maeda claimed that Procurement and Supply and OPA\u2019s decision not to find Radiocom non-responsible and an unreasonable bidder are arbitrary and capricious acts.<\/p>\n
Maeda also asked whether OPA erred in requiring Maeda to have the burden to prove that Radiocom was not a responsible bidder.<\/p>\n
Radiocom, through counsel Victorino DLG. Torres, argued that the company is a responsible bidder, its bid was reasonable, and it properly completed the bid-schedules.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman upheld yesterday the Procurement and Supply director\u2019s decision…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54,136,88],"class_list":["post-178184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-agency","tag-opa","tag-superior-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}