The Hudson County Board of Freeholders agreed last week to upgrade security in the county’s various buildings.
During the freeholder caucus on Wednesday, Bayonne Freeholder Barry Dugan complained that security in the Brennan Court house was lax and that the underground garages beneath the Newark and Pavonia county buildings were too easily accessible to possible terrorists.
Dugan noted that access to the court building was supposed to be limited to those bearing security badges, but that he had seen people going in and out of the facility without being checked.
“While there are guards at the desk, I have not seen them checking people going in and out,” Dugan said.
Dugan pointed out that a determined terrorist could drive a car into the parking lots beneath either building and blow it up.
Dugan was questioning a resolution that would pay $360,000 to Armor Group Integrated System Inc., a security installation firm with offices throughout the county, for the purchase, construction and implementation of a comprehensive security system for county facilities.
Dugan wanted to know if this covered all the needs of the county.
County Administrator Mark Morchel said this was the first phase of a three-phase project to bring the county’s security needs up to snuff.
Phase one will allow for the installation of a central computer, construction of monitoring workstations and a console, development of a new badge system, installation of a workstation, and closed circuit monitors. The project also would establish a digital record system and new security gates for the underground garages. Staff would also receive training in security operations.
Sgt. Steven Archibald of the Hudson County Sheriff’s Department said $360,000 was the start up cost for a security upgrade. He said the state Supreme Court had issued orders for the increased security on public buildings before Sept. 11.
Archibald agreed that there are security concerns in the two underground garages, and noted that the public has not been allowed to use the administration building’s parking lot since Sept. 11. He said that once the security card is installed for that building, only police officers and judges will be allowed into the lot.
Archibald admitted that the existing gates are virtually useless, and that the county has been struggling to find a replacement.
Archibald said the facility could not be made 100 percent impenetrable, but that county needed to increase its security “To make it totally safe, the county would have to build a fortress wall around the buildings, something not possible given its location in the heart of Jersey City,” Archibald said.
You can award the bid, but you can’t look at the prices?
In another matter, Jersey City Freeholder William O’Dea said he had checked regulations concerning the implementation of contracts to build a 32nd street walkway bridge in Union City and North Bergen, and found the regulation unacceptable.
Two weeks ago, O’Dea learned that the committee assigned to review the bidders for the project could not look at the prices the bidders proposed until after the contractor was selected. Even then, the committee – under state regulations set up to meet federal guidelines – could not look at the prices of the rejected contractors to see if the county actually got the best price.
The idea behind the process, according to Morchel was to have the committee base its recommendations on the company’s expertise rather than its price.
O’Dea questioned whether the state regulations actually reflected the federal intent, which was to find the most qualified bidder. O’Dea said such a contract could easily be rigged in favor of a single vendor. He said that since three of the members of the five-member committee are employed by the county, a politician could tell them to vote for a particular bidder. He said the federal guidelines could be as easily met by pre-qualifying contractors. By this, he meant that the county could review qualifications of vendors and take bids from only those that meet a high standard of excellence. From among them, they could decide by choosing the lowest bidder.