To: Dolores Layton, Clerk Typist, OMS
From: David H. Weiner, President, CWA
Local 1081
Date: May 26,
2009
Re: 215th CWA Local
1081 E-mail Trivia Contest Winner
Congratulations, you are last week's CWA Local 1081 Trivia Contest winner. Please contact CWA Local 1081 Secretary Treasurer Vera Winns at (973) 623-1081, or preferably by E-mail at vwinns@oel.state.nj.us, to collect your $50.00 prize. You were the first to correctly answer all of the following questions:
1. Resolution #31 of the agenda of the May 13, 2009 public Board Meeting of the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders awarded a contract in the amount not to exceed how much money to Metuchen Center Inc., Garden State Apparel Team Sports located within New Brunswick, New Jersey to “The (sic) addresses the County’s need for purchasing a variety of printed embroidered and silk screen t-shirts”?
Answer: $150,000.
2. The quoted reason stated within the resolution for the necessity of purchasing the t-shirts was what?
Answer: “T-shirts are needed for County events, concerts and facilities information”.
3. The Bid Document Contents form within the resolution states “15. BUY AMERICAN - Only manufactured and farm products of the United States, wherever available, shall be used under this contract, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40A: 11-18. However, the decision of the Board of Freeholders will be paramount under what conditions?
Answer: Where the price discrepancy favors the foreign goods or products and said decision does not conflict with the law.
4. CWA Local 1081 in the relatively recent past submitted a query to the administration of the County of Essex requesting to be appraised of the source of the funding the administration utilized to purchase the slew of lapel pins prominently adorning the garb of the members of the administration including the County’s department and division directors and other designated County personnel. Where were the lapel pins manufactured?
Answer: China.
5. Accompanying our letter to Mr. DiVincenzo, our Union attached an OPRA (Open Public Records Act) request for certain documents. Name all five requests.
Answer:
1. All documents delineating from what specific County departments’ operating accounts will the $150,000.00 total expenditure for the purchase of the t-shirts originate, and in what specific respective monetary amounts?
2. All documents delineating which of the County’s departments shall respectively receive which amount and type (embroidered or silk screened) of t-shirts.
3. All documents delineating the countries of origin, other than the United States, of the County-ordered t-shirts if the resolution’s buy American requirement is not honored by the vendor contracted to supply the County the t-shirts.
4. If the “decision of the Board of Freeholders will be paramount where the price discrepancy favors the foreign goods or products and said decision does not conflict with the law”, and if the ordered t-shirts are not to be American made, all documents supporting the assertion that the price discrepancy favored the foreign goods or products.
5. All documents delineating the apparent discrepancy between the stated purpose of this resolution’s contract with this vendor, which is to “The (sic) addresses the County’s need for purchasing a variety of printed embroidered and silk screen t-shirts.”, and the perceptible point that in addition to t-shirts this contractual agreement between the County of Essex and Metuchen Center Inc., Garden State Apparel Team Sports also includes one or more of the following:
- The most expensive of all of the non-t-shirt items on the list of other type garments the contractor is to provide to the County per Resolution #31 is what and how much does it cost apiece?
Answer: Vermont parkas costing $61.95 apiece.