Subject: [NEXTEL-1] M/A Com- Deal -Judge: City didn't violate law

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 15:16:10 -0500

November 24, 2003

EXCLUSIVE REPORTS
Judge: City didn't violate law
Stephen Van Drake

The city of Miami Beach did not violate Florida's Sunshine Law when awarding a
$7.8 million contract to Motorola (NYSE: MOT) for an emergency communications
system, a Nov. 7 ruling by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Gill S. Freeman says.
Freeman rejected competing bidder M/A Com's Sept. 22 demand for a temporary
injunction, halting the project.
M/A Com of Lowell, Mass., argued the city negotiated the deal with Motorola
behind closed doors. But Freeman agreed with Miami Beach assistant city attorney
Jean Olin that administrative staff negotiations should not be open to the
public.
M/A Com, however, claimed a specially appointed committee cut the deal with
Motorola in the dark after M/A Com's bid included all-new radios for the 800MHZ
emergency response communications system.

M/A Com argued that inclusion made its bid lower than Motorola's because all-new
radios cost $3 million. M/A Com also said Miami Beach public records show the
city needs to replace all its radios within three years.
Noting this, Motorola's lobbyist sprang into action, according to court records,
and salted the deal with 321 used digital radios left over from the 2002 Winter
Olympics in Salt Lake City.

M/A Com filed suit the day before Miami Beach commissioners unanimously handed
Motorola the contract in September.
But Judge Freeman in her November order wrote that M/A Com failed to provide
proof it would substantially succeed. Besides, she said, the city did not
violate the Sunshine Law, a key burden to meet if the injunction was to be
upheld.
"The evidence shows that the [city] staff was not delegated any decision-making
authority, but was merely to negotiate the contract itself.  "Further, there was
no evidence that the staff was acting as a board or appointed to a committee or
had made any recommendations to the City Manager," she wrote.

While M/A Com lost its injunction bid to stall Motorola, it continues to demand
damages against the city and Motorola, according to court documents.

E-mail law writer Stephen Van Drake at [email-masked].

http://southflorida.bizjournals.com/southflorida/stories/2003/11/24/story5.html?t=printable

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From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2003 19:47:07 -0600

[email-masked] wrote:

salted the deal with 321 used digital radios left over from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

LOL! How about them salted peanuts?

-rick

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