The Appellate Court of Maryland has issued an Order vacating the Judgment of the Montgomery County Circuit Court In the Matter of AutoFlex Fleet, Inc.
This Order (shown below) mandates that the matter must be returned to the Montgomery County Board of Education for an administrative review of the augmented evidentiary record with regard to the award of the $168 million dollar contract to HET MCPS, LLC for MCPS electric school buses.
The Court said, "...the Contract must be reviewed in light of the adjudicated facts supporting the convictions of these DOT directors who were integrally involved in managing MCPS' bidding process, evaluating responding proposals, and awarding the Contract to an affiliate of the vendor they were exploiting." (Page 60 of Opinion below)
This litigation began with a protest filed by a losing bidder on this contract.
AutoFlex Fleet, Inc. filed a written protest of the decision to award the Contract to HET MCPS, LLC on December 16, 2020.
On March 5, 2024, the Appellate Court of Maryland released a 64 page opinion (shown below) detailing the matter and their decision.
This litigation has gone from the initial protest by a losing bidder to MCPS (protest denied) 🠞 Montgomery County Board of Education (appeal denied) 🠞 Maryland State Board of Education (appeal denied) 🠞 Montgomery County Circuit Court (appeal denied) 🠞Maryland Appellate Court (Order issued) 🠞 then mandated back to 🠞 Montgomery County Circuit Court 🠞 Maryland State Board of Education 🠞 Montgomery County Board of Education.
Why has the Contract Award protest been sent back to the Montgomery County Board of Education for review?
The very short answer is because 2 of the 3 (or 4) MCPS employees who reviewed the initial bids for the MCPS electric school bus contract have since been convicted of crimes including felony theft and misdemeanor misconduct in office in relation to a scheme to divert MCPS funds to an off the books account held by a subcontractor on the HET MCPS, LLC (Highland Electric) electric school bus proposal.
HET MCPS, LLC was the winning bidder of the $168M MCPS electric school bus contract.
AutoFlex Fleet, LLC wants the facts surrounding the criminal convictions of MCPS Department of Transportation (DOT) Director (Watkins) and Assistant (Ewald) to be reviewed in connection with their protest of the award of this contract.
The Appellate Court of Maryland agrees with them that these criminal convictions should be part of the review of the awarding of the $168M MCPS electric school bus contract and so the matter goes back to the Board of Education for review with these criminal convictions in the record.
Note: There's a whole lot of legal fees being generated to pay for the Board of Education's defense of this litigation, with more to come. The continued failure of the Board of Education to exert any oversight over MCPS continues to divert education funding away from classrooms to outside legal fees.
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Hindsight is 20/20:
ReplyDelete"The continued failure of the Board of Education to exert any oversight over MCPS continues to divert education funding away from classrooms to outside legal fees."
Hindsight? That's current site and future site. It's the way the Board of Education operates 365 days a year.
DeleteAre they back from their summer vacation yet?
Delete