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Irregular News for 05.24.06
Cobb County GA -- There it was in the e-mail spam filter, along with offers to invigorate both your bank account and your sex life: an offer to save the Cobb County schools $250,000. But this message was for real.
School officials are blaming an overeager junk-mail filter for capturing and killing a Kennesaw businessman's bid to provide telephone services to the system. It seems the part of the filter that watches for pornographic material was offended by the use of terms such as "long distance."
Not able to check for the missing e-mail, school officials figured the businessman never responded, so he was disqualified. BellSouth won the contract, worth about $670,000 a year, in late February.
Mike Russell, president of Elite Telecom Services, appealed the process through the school system, but on May 1, Superintendent Fred Sanderson denied the appeal and declared the matter closed.
Russell, who bid on behalf of telecom provider ITC Deltacom, said Monday he's not planning on taking the matter to court, but he wants the public to be careful in dealing with the school system. Particularly by e-mail.
The killed e-mail was a follow-up to a formal, written and bound bid already in the hands of the system. When officials needed to get some questions answered, which is standard in most bidding arrangements, they fired off an e-mail — and asked for a response in kind.
"We must have our response to this request returned via e-mail ... in order for your company's response to be considered further," Jill Vestal, a purchasing official, wrote in an e-mail to Deltacom's Michael Smalley.
School finance director Robert Morales confirmed the series of events, adding that the school system's computer technicians told him that "long distance" and similarly benign terms could have flagged the e-mail.
But Morales made it clear that someone seeking a substantial contract with a public agency should be able to outwit a program designed to catch pornographers.
"I think any good manager is going to follow up the bid process," said Morales.
Russell isn't buying it.
"Every e-mail sent by me was received except this one," said Russell.
That made it the school system's responsibility to ensure that the message was received, Russell said.
The director of research for the Usery Center for the Workplace at Georgia State University, which studies such issues, agrees with Russell.
The contractor had made a good-faith effort to communicate with the school system, using an e-mail address he had used successfully, said Les Hough, director of the center. Consequently, school system officials had the responsibility to ensure that their e-mail filter did not weed out this important communication, he said.
Russell says his proposal would have saved the school system at least $250,000 a year on telephone services, though school officials question whether there would have been any savings because they didn't get to analyze his response to questions.
Russell said he doesn't trust the school system. A Cobb grand jury is looking into the system's controversial contract with Apple Computers for laptop computers, Russell noted. Jurors are asking whether officials manipulated bids for a failed contract to provide laptops to students and teachers.
"I would have thought that because of the laptop procurement they would have been much more diligent in handling the bidding process," Russell said. "But they were not."
source
Cobb County GA -- There it was in the e-mail spam filter, along with offers to invigorate both your bank account and your sex life: an offer to save the Cobb County schools $250,000. But this message was for real.
School officials are blaming an overeager junk-mail filter for capturing and killing a Kennesaw businessman's bid to provide telephone services to the system. It seems the part of the filter that watches for pornographic material was offended by the use of terms such as "long distance."
Not able to check for the missing e-mail, school officials figured the businessman never responded, so he was disqualified. BellSouth won the contract, worth about $670,000 a year, in late February.
Mike Russell, president of Elite Telecom Services, appealed the process through the school system, but on May 1, Superintendent Fred Sanderson denied the appeal and declared the matter closed.
Russell, who bid on behalf of telecom provider ITC Deltacom, said Monday he's not planning on taking the matter to court, but he wants the public to be careful in dealing with the school system. Particularly by e-mail.
The killed e-mail was a follow-up to a formal, written and bound bid already in the hands of the system. When officials needed to get some questions answered, which is standard in most bidding arrangements, they fired off an e-mail — and asked for a response in kind.
"We must have our response to this request returned via e-mail ... in order for your company's response to be considered further," Jill Vestal, a purchasing official, wrote in an e-mail to Deltacom's Michael Smalley.
School finance director Robert Morales confirmed the series of events, adding that the school system's computer technicians told him that "long distance" and similarly benign terms could have flagged the e-mail.
But Morales made it clear that someone seeking a substantial contract with a public agency should be able to outwit a program designed to catch pornographers.
"I think any good manager is going to follow up the bid process," said Morales.
Russell isn't buying it.
"Every e-mail sent by me was received except this one," said Russell.
That made it the school system's responsibility to ensure that the message was received, Russell said.
The director of research for the Usery Center for the Workplace at Georgia State University, which studies such issues, agrees with Russell.
The contractor had made a good-faith effort to communicate with the school system, using an e-mail address he had used successfully, said Les Hough, director of the center. Consequently, school system officials had the responsibility to ensure that their e-mail filter did not weed out this important communication, he said.
Russell says his proposal would have saved the school system at least $250,000 a year on telephone services, though school officials question whether there would have been any savings because they didn't get to analyze his response to questions.
Russell said he doesn't trust the school system. A Cobb grand jury is looking into the system's controversial contract with Apple Computers for laptop computers, Russell noted. Jurors are asking whether officials manipulated bids for a failed contract to provide laptops to students and teachers.
"I would have thought that because of the laptop procurement they would have been much more diligent in handling the bidding process," Russell said. "But they were not."
source
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