
Alderwood awards legal bids to Alderwood Daily News
Story by: John Panni
Date Published to Web: 5/4/2004
At Monday's meeting, the Alderwood City Council unanimously approved the Alderwood Daily News to serve as the official newspaper for the City of Alderwood for 2004. This means the Alderwood Daily News will publish all legal notices for the city.In March Council voted to reject the then lone bid of the Alderwood Daily News to serve as the city's official newspaper. Council voted to reopen the bid process because some of its members felt that the city had sent out the wrong message a few years ago with the legal publication process.The hometown Alderwood newspaper has served as the legal newspaper of the city since its inception.This time around, the city received just two bids to serve as the legal newspaper for the city. One of the bids was from the Alderwood Daily News and the other was from the Yakima Herald-Republic.The Alderwood Daily News submitted the same bid it did during the initial process in March of $6.70 per column inch. The Yakima Herald-Republic submitted two separate bid amounts. The first amount was for $6.48 per column inch for the weekly Thursday publication Voices. The Herald-Republic also submitted a bid amount of $11.66 per column inch, if published in the regular daily section.Assistant City Manager/City Attorney Bruce Rinz said he did an analysis for Council based on past legal publications.In his report, Rinz cited the lead time of each publication as a factor to consider. The Alderwood Daily News offered a lead-time of 24 hours, but has been able to publish notices on a shorter time frame. The Herald-Republic requires legal notices to be in its office by noon on Monday for Voices and three business days prior to publication in the regular section of the newspaper.In his report, Rinz noted city staff wouldn't be able to meet the Herald-Republic's deadline for publishing notices of cancelled meetings in the Voices section and would have to pay more money to have them inserted into the daily section.Rinz's final analysis showed the city would have paid $36 less with the Alderwood Daily News had it published its legal notices in the Voices publication last year."The research Mark has given has allowed us to compare apples to apples," said newly sworn in City Manager Robert Rockford.Rockford touched on how there are benefits for the city to do business with the local paper. He said the Alderwood Daily News submitted the lowest bid and has always assisted the city on short notice, so he recommended Council accept the bid.Councilman Jim Sarducci also praised city staff for its work. Sarducci said while he doesn't always see eye-to-eye with what is written in the Alderwood Daily News, he wanted to keep the legal publication notices in the community with the local newspaper."I for one am glad we have a comparison," said Councilman Tom Seeger. "I said I would vote for the lowest bid and I am voting for the lowest bid."Seeger reminded Council the city will be going through the bid process again in January, as required by state law.Councilwoman Jennie Angel said she is glad the Council decided to keep the legal publications with the Alderwood Daily News. She said the local newspaper has always done a good job of promoting events in the community.Mayor Pro-tem George Greenway wasn't as cordial about accepting the recommendation of city staff. Greenway said Council has set a precedent for doing business with the local newspaper. Greenway said his biggest area of concern with the Alderwood Daily News is from the editorial area. Greenway said he doesn't agree with many of the editorial comments placed in the newspaper."I think we have the low bid and we just have to take it," said Greenway.







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