The city is again facing legal action from ADPC over a flawed RFP process and claims that the firm poised to replace it submitted a defective bid
TRENTON -- Over the years, Trenton has had a sometimes rocky relationship with its longtime IT provider ADPC.
File photo of Trenton City Hall on E. State St. In early 2011, former Mayor Tony Mack's administration attempted to cancel its contract with the firm. When council voted to replace ADPC with Lynx Technology Partners, ADPC sued the city on the basis Lynx was not qualified to handle the city's software systems and its bid contained errors.
A judge threw out the bid award to Lynx, blasted mayoral aide Anthony Roberts as "completed unqualified" to evaluate contract bids and ordered the city to keep ADPC on as its provider through June 2011.
ADPC sued the city a second time after alleging it opened bids for a new provider too early.
In a case of deja vu, the city is again facing legal action from ADPC over a flawed RFP process and claims that the firm poised to replace it submitted a defective bid.
"In 2011 to 2015, the City of Trenton has learned nothing," city resident Kevin Moriarty said during public comment at Thursday's council meeting. "As the result of a fundamentally flawed RFP process, the administration is once again rejecting its old vendor."
After ADPC's contract expired on Saturday, the new firm FCC Consulting Services started work on Monday -- four days before council was set to vote on the three-year, $2.4 million contract.
An hour before Thursday's meeting, state Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson issued a temporary injunction blocking council from awarding the contract.
MORE: Judge temporarily blocks Trenton from awarding contract
"It's clear that there was bad blood between the city and this entity," she said at the hearing. "Did that mean they weren't given a fair share? I don't know, but I'm not convinced on the basis of the materials that I have seen that the evaluation process was on an even playing field."
There was no mention of the judge's decision at the meeting, but council met in executive session to discuss ADPC's pending litigation and later voted to postpone the contract award until the lawsuits are resolved.
City spokesman Michael Walker said on Friday that FCC continues to provide IT services to the city, but could not provide details about cost.
"We are in the process of examining our options to determine the best way to move forward," he said.
When FCC took over for ADPC, questions immediately emerged about the company and its president, Chris Carothers.
State business records show that his business certificate was twice revoked in 2010 and 2014 after he failed to file annual reports.
Registrations for three of his other business ventures -- Millennium Consulting Solutions, LLC, The Cardun Development Group and MCS Underground Construction LLC -- also lapsed after Carothers failed to file annual reports for two consecutive years, records show.
Records also show that Carothers has outstanding judgments against him and two of his businesses totaling nearly $70,000 and he lost his home in a 2008 sheriff's sale.
His business also operates out of a home office in Mansfield.
"From the evidence that's available at this point, it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the bidding process was manipulated to produce the result desired by the administration," Moriarty said Thursday. "Otherwise, how could a single firm that's small, poorly resourced, questionably capable, inadequately capitalized as evidenced by the frequent financial difficulties of its principal ... be possibly selected as the winner?"
Of the 12 firms that submitted a bid, ADPC and FCC were the ninth- and tenth-highest bidders, respectively, but city officials said that cost was one of many factors that were considered in making a decision. Others included technical skill sets, experience and level of management.
In its most recent lawsuit, ADPC pointed out errors in FCC's bid, questioned the evaluation process and alleged that Carothers' connections with city officials tainted the process.
One of FCC's listed clients is Trenton Educational Development Corporation, where City Council President Zachary Chester previously served as its director of statistical support. Carothers also donated a combined $400 to Chester's 2010 campaign, records show.
ADPC's attorney, James Brady, pointed out that most members of the evaluation committee report directly to Business Administrator Terry McEwen, who like Carothers, graduated from Rider University and serves on the school's board of trustees.
The suit also notes that Drew Procaccino, an associate professor at Rider, was brought in by the city to validate the process and review the proposals from a technical perspective.
Brady also said the evaluation touched on criteria outside the scope of the RFP and critiqued ADPC's past performance.
He said the evaluation report made available to council and the public neither summarized all of the vendor proposals nor ranked them, as is required by statute.
"That would be of some use to council members to make their own independent decision as to who they make the award to," he said. "It's all very nice to recommend, but they're not a rubber stamp. They're supposed to be a deliberative body."
Brady told the judge that ADPC believes that FCC was favored from the start.
"If (ADPC CEO Joseph Harris) loses this, he loses this, but we want to know the process is fair and square," he said. "We want to know that they're complying with the letter and spirit of the law. We want to know that we're not being moved out because someone has a friend who is in the same line of business and we think he could probably do just as good a job."
Elyse Crawford, the attorney representing the city, dismissed the lawsuit as frivolous. She said the technical issues with FCC's bid that Brady brought up were clerical errors that would not have amounted to a rejection of the bid.
"They do not want to lose this contract that they are creating and fabricating false narratives as to how nefarious this entire process is," Crawford said in court. "There is every attempt made by ADPC to mischaracterize and create a cloud of suspicion around the evaluators.
"Frankly, if we delve into six degrees of separation for any one of these proposals, I'm sure we can find people that also graduated from Rider University," she continued.
Following the hearing, Harris said he hoped ADPC would prevail in the lawsuits.
"There's too many things wrong with this evaluation and (Jacobson) concurred that," he said.
At the meeting, both Moriarty and resident Lee Willie Ingram urged council to vote against awarding the contract to FCC when the time comes.
"I sat through the whole Tony Mack administration ... and all I can say is deja vu," Ingram said. "There's criminal activity going on and if you all allow this bid to be accepted, don't think you're not a part of that."
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.