By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer 

CASCO — The demolition of a dangerous building has been delayed because of an omission in the bidding process.

 Since a referral for bids (RFB) was not posted in the correct place on the Town of Casco’s website, and since one of the bidders pointed this out, the bidding process to bring down a dangerous building is back to Square One.

The Casco Board of Selectmen voted, 4-0, to reject all the bids. This decision was made during its regular meeting on June 7.

“The Town failed to properly post this RFP on our website and this potentially effected the attendance at the mandatory pre-bid meeting held on May 3.  One of the bidders notified me of this omission and advised this oversight prevented him from attending the mandatory meeting,” according to Casco Town Manager Tony Ward.   

“The RFP was provided to several local contractors, but were not directly provided to Starrett Snow and Landscape Services and Watkins Property Services.  The RFP was posted on Maine Municipal’s website and was supposed to be posted on our website listed under RFPs,” Ward said.

He added that the RFP was not located in the correct place on the website.

“I felt that we had the potential to open this up for litigation. If not litigation, it lacks transparency,” Ward said. 

“I spoke with counsel and voiced my concerns on the appearance of potential inequities with this bid process. She agreed with my perspective and advised acceptance of any bid potentially allows for potential litigation. The best practice would be rejected all the bids because of the Town mistake and repost the RFP.  We would return all deposits from this round. We would also recommend that the four companies that attended the initial pre-bid meeting be grandfathered from another meeting,” Ward said. “But they would obviously be able to attend if they wanted to.”

“Counsel and I recommend the [board of selectmen] reject all bids submitted and advise the town manager to repost the Request for Proposal,” he said. 

The five companies that partook in the bid process were: Ryan Family Builders, Starrett Snow and Landscape Services,  RT Symonds, CR Tandberg, and Watkins Property Services.

The building to be demolished is located at 388 Roosevelt Trail.