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A prominent Niagara Falls businessman this week blasted City Administrator Al Joseph and charged the administration with playing politics in awarding the city's junk car towing contract.
James Page, owner of Page's Automotive, has hired former corporation counsel Robert Merino to represent him in the matter and said he is prepared to take the city to court if need be to obtain satisfaction.
"I've been wronged here," Page told the Reporter."All I want is what's morally right. This just stinks." Merino said he is currently looking at various options before deciding on a course of action.
"I'm really of the conviction that Jim was treated unfairly," he said."We're in the process of putting together some documentation and collecting evidence, and we'll decide where we go from there."
Last March, the city sent out 25 bid requests for the contract and also advertised in the newspaper. When the time came for the bid opening, Page's was the only one that had been received.
That day, Page called Dean Spring, the city's purchasing agent.
"I asked him who won the bid, and he told me I was the only bidder," he said."That was the whole conversation."
Thinking he had the contract, Page said he went out and invested more than $200,000 for an additional scrap yard on Lockport Road and a car crusher. While he has towed an average of between 40 and 50 cars a year since first getting the city contract in 1996, Page said a major cleanup initiative is imminent. Next year, as many as 200 cars may be towed, he said.
But more than a month later, on May 22, he received a letter from Spring informing him that the city had rejected his bid, on the grounds that more bidders were being sought.
"I wouldn't have a problem with them rejecting it, but they opened it," Page said."Everybody on the street knew what my bid was."
In August, a new round of bidding was initiated. This time, two bids were received, one from Page and another from Satarian Auto Parts on Witmer Road. Page agreed to pay the city $43 for each abandoned vehicle picked up, while Satarian offered $48.25.
Joseph and Mayor Irene Elia recommended the contract be awarded to Satarian, whose owner, George Satarian, is prominent in Republican politics in the county. Page, meanwhile, is a county Democratic Committeeman. "As far as I'm concerned, this is a personal vendetta against me by Al Joseph," Page said."Is it a political thing? I don't know. But I do know I have been wronged here."
Even some Republicans were outraged. City Councilwoman Barbara Geracitano said the episode raised both legal and moral issues.
"Once a bid is opened, it's public. This thing smells to high heaven," she said."In all my years on council and even in the other boards I've sat on, I've never seen anything like this."
Page said he tried in vain to make his concerns known to Joseph, and even offered a compromise in which he and Satarian would take the tow calls on a rotating basis.
"I called him nine times and he never returned my calls," he said."I spoke to the mayor about it and she said, 'We always answer our calls.' I couldn't believe it."
When the matter first was brought before council on Sept. 11, the members tabled it after Page appeared to discuss the irregularities in the bidding process. But at the Sept. 25 meeting, a 4-3 vote removed the issue from the table, and Satarian's bid eventually was accepted by a 5-2 margin.
Page was stunned.
"I was assured by (Council members) Tony Quaranto and Fran Iusi that no action would be taken at that meeting," he said."I was towing a car to Rochester when I got a call and was told they'd accepted Satarian's bid." Merino characterized the council's decision as"curious."
"I'm surprised the council didn't recognize the injustice of this and just re-bid the whole thing," he said."At least that way, both bidders would be on an even playing field."
Councilman John Accardo voted against taking the matter off the table but ultimately voted in favor of the Satarian bid after being assured by Assistant Corporation Counsel Tom O'Donnell that nothing illegal had occurred. "It doesn't look legal or sound legal, and I really don't think it was ethical, but from what we were told by the corporation counsel's office, it was legal," Accardo said.
Councilman Charles Walker, who voted with Geracitano against accepting the bid, said that if the administration wanted more bids, Page's shouldn't have been opened in the first place.
"Once you open that bid, then you're showing this guy's cards," he said.
Geracitano said she questions O'Donnell's advice.
"It wouldn't be the first time taking their advice got us into a lawsuit," she said."There's some hanky panky involved in this, I'm sure of it. The whole thing was totally sickening."