Seubert Excavators Inc., last week returned a check for $40,000 that was received from Valley County as a settlement for a lawsuit.
The check was returned to prove a point that the company was not suing the county for money when it was not awarded a contract to crush stone, a letter accompanying the check said.
"The fact that you sent us a settlement check for $40,000, which we never asked for in our original lawsuit indicates that the county was legally wrong," a letter to Valley County commissioners from Seubert Excavators President Nick Seubert said.
"Instead the county acted as if it was our fault that it did not follow the law, and that all we wanted was a cash settlement," Seubert said. "That is not true, as all we wanted was for the county to follow the law."
"To prove this point, find enclosed the check that you paid to us in settlement of this matter," the letter said. "We hope the money we are sending back to you will be used to educate your people about fair and lawful bid practices."
The letter was sent to the county, last week after county commissioners met in a public meeting with Nick and Chris Seubert. The meeting was set to finalize the settlement agreement between the two parties. At that meeting, the settlement amount was disclosed.
"The amount of the settlement was to be confidential, but the commissioners made it public at their last meeting," Seubert Excavators attorney Ron Blewett of Lewiston said.
"As a part of the settlement, Seubert was granted an audience with the commissioners," Blewett said. "Rather than recognize a genuine problem with county bid procedures, or a waste of taxpayer dollars, they accused Seubert Excavators of filing a suit just to get money from the county. Nothing could be further from fact."
The excavation company sued the county this summer when it was not awarded a contract from the county for operations at the county's quarry south of Donnelly on Goode Lane.
Seubert Excavators, of Cottonwood, submitted the lowest bid for the project, butthe county awarded the bid to Debco Construction of Orofino. The Debco bid was $139,000 higher than the Seubert bid.
Since the county did not award the bid to the lowest bidder, they were required by state law to inform Seubert Excavators of why they chose to go with the higher bidder.
At last week's meeting the Seuberts wanted to know how the county could justify awarding a bid that was $139,000 higher than the lowest qualified bid.
"If ever a bid warranted being tabled, that one did," Nick Seubert said.
"The road department made a mistake," Valley County Prosecuting Attorney Matt Williams said.
"In the future, they will be cooperating with the prosecutor's office to ensure we follow state code."
The county had previously awarded a bid to Seubert to crush stone at the county's quarry, but the company said it could not operate at the new quarry while county crews were working there.
The company and the county came to an agreement to trade processed crushed road mix for unprocessed rock in the quarry. In October 2006, the company began crushing stone in the quarry, which required the contract be extended from Sept. 30 to Nov. 30.
Bad weather quickly set in, the company had trouble screening out clay from the materials, and ultimately the county terminated the contract in December 2006.
Some of the materials from the quarry were used on the West Roseberry Road extension. That material had to be removed because it was unusable.
The contract was put out for a bid in 2007. Both Seubert and Debco submitted bids, but Debco's higher bid was accepted by the county.
Commissioner Gordon Cruickshank said that bid could be terminated at any time by the county if "we didn't think we were getting the best bang for our buck."
After the contract was awarded to Debco in June, Blewett asked for an explanation from the county in a letter dated June 28.
The letter asked that the county state their reasons for not awarding the contract to the lowest bidder on the record. It also asked the county to communicate the reasons in writing as well.
Seubert Excavators would then be given a seven-day period to respond as is required by state law.
That process was not followed," Williams said. "We should have followed the process set out in state code."
