LVCVA sticks with controversial contract

Wednesday, March 25, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.

A convention center telecommunications contract worth an estimated $48 million will stay in the hands of a Houston company that was awarded the bid earlier this month, even though a review committee said a Reno rival's bid was superior.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors Tuesday deadlocked in a 6-6 vote to reconsider the bid awarded to US Telecom of Houston.

A four-member independent review committee had recommended the bid be awarded to PCS World, a relatively young Reno company. But at the March 10 meeting, board members were swayed by a Dun & Bradstreet credit report showing PCS World to have one of its lowest ratings.

After the meeting, a PCS World executive said the credit report was based on three-year-old information from the company's worst year. Board member Mary Kincaid promised to bring the issue up for review citing the disclosure of new information.

In the telecommunications bid, the LVCVA sought proposals for eight categories of service for exhibitor use at the convention center -- voice and data line telephones, long distance, pay phones, Internet access, cellular telephone rental, wireless telephone rental, prepaid calling cards and other technologies.

The proposals were reviewed by an evaluation committee that included two representatives from the LVCVA's facilities division, a representative from the finance department and an independent technical consultant. Each member of the committee rated PCS World over US Telecom.

The general feeling was that PCS World offered more cutting-edge technology, but had less experience supporting convention centers. The company's biggest test, supplying New York's Javits Center, has been successful, but being a relative newcomer to the industry, the company suffered through some difficult financial times in its early days. US Telecom, meanwhile, has had considerably more experience in large venues and is well established financially.

The vote to reconsider the bid failed when the board deadlocked. Voting against reconsideration were Jan Laverty Jones, Ed Crispell, Michael McDonald, Don Givens, Don Snyder and Mike Montandon.

Officials with PCS World said they don't plan to contend the final outcome, but were left scratching their heads over why their bid wasn't accepted.

"Everything that should have mattered to the board and to the city didn't matter," said Scott Frost, director of sales for PCS World. "We had the technology and the products they wanted. We had major show management companies endorsing us. We have products that push the envelope and the staff recommended us. But none of that mattered."

Frost said managers for two of Las Vegas' largest technology shows -- Comdex and the Winter Consumer Electronics Show -- wrote letters of support for PCS World and its bid.

"Las Vegas always demands and gets the best it could have," Frost said. "In this case, they could have had a Cadillac but they ended up getting a Yugo.

"And it isn't as if we lost. We tied. There were six members of the board who at least wanted to look at the issue again."

Among the six who voted for reconsideration was Kincaid, who wanted to meet with members of the evaluation committee to see if they had sorted through all the financial records in reaching their recommendation. Kincaid balked at LVCVA President Manny Cortez's offer to bring the committee into the board meeting, stating instead that she preferred to have the committee and the issue brought to the board's next meeting.

Another factor in the reconsideration issue was a timetable. The contract for the existing contractor, Sprint, is scheduled to end June 15. Since the new contractor needs lead time to set up its new systems, any major delay in finalizing the contract could impact service at the convention center.

"The bottom line is we need to be sure we have dial tones when Sprint leaves," Cortez said.