MOUNT VERNON — The Knox County Commissioners voted Monday to approve bid awards proposed by Roger Shooter, head of the Knox County Department of Job & Family Services. Shooter solicited bids for office supplies in three areas. The Master Bid was for normal office supplies and equipment to be purchased from catalogue listings. Schedule 2 was for blank paper. Schedule 3 was for ribbons and toner.
The Mansfield branch of Corporate Express, the business supply wing of Staples, was awarded the Master Bid contract with a bid of $11,931.19 for one year’s estimated needs. One vendor, Quill Corp., came in with a lower bid, but was disqualified as it was unable to supply 58 items, and substituted different part numbers on some others.
Schedule 2 was awarded to the Charles Ritter Co. of Mansfield with a bid of $8,634.88 for a year’s supply of paper. It beat Corporate Express and Info-Link Technologies. Quill Corp.’s bid was again discarded for not fulfilling the terms of the quote: The company refused to quote prices that would be guaranteed for a full year.
The Charles Ritter Co. was also awarded the Schedule 3 bid by quoting $13,661.64 for remanufactured toner and ink cartridges.
The commissioners said all of the other county agencies are welcome to use these contract prices for purchases.
In other business, Chip McConville reported to the commissioners that although Knox County will no longer be acting as fiscal agent for the Mid East Ohio Regional Council, an offshoot of the MRDD Board whose offices are located in Mount Vernon, it will still be part of the insurance group administered and covered by the county.
Steve Oster, Knox MRDD supervisor, and Dennis Eggerton, chief executive officer of New Hope Industries, met with the commissioners to propose shifting MRDD’s lease of the building at 1375 Newark Road to New Hope.
“We are prepared to take it over,” Eggerton said, noting that despite the downturn in the economy, New Hope’s business has remained fairly strong.
Oster said MRDD would budget for a couple of years to subsidize the operation, just in case something should come to pass that would prevent New Hope from continuing the operation. Oster also said he would like some language in the contract allowing the retention of a couple of rooms as storage space for the MRDD board.
Commissioner Allen Stockberger advised Oster to take an existing lease agreement and mark the changes desired, then pass it first to Eggerton for review, then to County Prosecutor John Thatcher for approval. As the time frame is getting short for achieving this by Jan. 1, all agreed to target signing a new lease on Jan. 29, to go in effect on the first day of February.
Richard Stallard met briefly with the commissioners to review his activities as the county’s appointed representative to the Regional Planning Commission.
