Cleveland Communications Inc. sues Lorain County for rescinding radio contract

Cleveland Communications Inc., which won and then lost a nearly $7.7 million contract to provide Lorain County emergency first responders with a new radio system, has sued the Lorain County Board of Commissioners for alleged breach of contract and denial of due process after two commissioners voted to rescind the agreement less than a month after it was signed. In an 18-page lawsuit filed in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Friday, Parma-based CCI accused the county of breaching its contract when county Commissioners David Moore and Jeff Riddell voted to rescind the 19-day-old agreement over what they said were concerns about how CCI won the bid. The lawsuit, which is assigned to Judge John Miraldi's courtroom, seeks to force the board to reinstate the contract and pay compensatory, punitive and other damages in excess of $15,000, attorney fees and court costs. In the lawsuit, CCI called the county's decision to rescind the contract "unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable and unsupported by the law and a preponderance of substantial, reliable and probative evidence." The county didn't have a lawful reason to terminate the contract, CCI's attorneys wrote. A clause in the agreement, according to CCI, was that the county had to give it 60 days' notice before terminating the contract. In that event, "the county shall pay the contractor (CCI) for all equipment which had at that point been purchased for the project, services rendered and expenses incurred in connection with the project through the effective date of termination," according to the lawsuit. The board's Jan. 9 agenda "gave no notice of the purported reasons for the vote to rescind the contract and funding," according to CCI's lawsuit. "Nor did any other communication give CCI or other interested parties sufficient notice of the meeting or advanced notice of the issues that they would need to address." "To the contrary, Commissioners Moore and Riddell purported to find — without any evidentiary or lawful basis — that the bidding process was flawed because in the end, CCI presented the only sufficient bid," CCI wrote. The lawsuit further alleges the bid process was valid and lawful, that CCI submitted a valid proposal complying with the county's requirements, that no other valid bids were received, and that the contract was lawfully awarded to CCI in December. Background CCI was chosen to build a countywide radio system on the back of the L3 Harris radios, which are Wi-Fi compatible and favored by the Lorain County Fire Chief's Association, Lorain County Sheriff Phil Stammitti and the Lorain County Deputies Association. Stammitti and those groups all spoke out in favor of the L3 Harris radios in December after years of planning to swap out the current, obsolete system. The L3 Harris radios are the same radios recommended in the final draft of a 275-page study by Mission Critical Partners, a consulting firm hired by the county in 2018 to investigate countywide communications. Mission Critical recommended L3 Harris as a modern system compatible with the Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, or MARCS, which is used in the majority of Ohio counties. Fire chiefs whose departments are on the old radio system said the L3 Harris radios would allow for better communication at fire scenes. They pointed to the success of the Avon, Avon Lake, North Ridgeville, Sheffield and Sheffield Lake fire departments, which already use the L3 Harris radios. Fire chiefs in those cities lauded the radios' performance. Moore, a Republican, was not present at the Aug. 3, 2022, meeting where then-Commissioner Matt Lundy, a Democrat, and Commissioner Michelle Hung, a Republican, voted to start the competitive bidding process. CCI's bid was the only bid received after both CCI and Motorola Solutions, the MARCS vendor, requested and received a 14-day deadline extension. Motorola did not end up submitting a bid and a second bid by Avon-based Vasu Communications was incomplete, officials said. Nor was Moore present on Dec. 21 when Hung and Lundy voted to spend millions in American Rescue Plan Act funds with CCI to provide the radios to deputies and interested fire departments that don't have them — including Elyria and Lorain, the two largest cities in the county. On Jan. 9, Moore and Riddell, a Republican who replaced Lundy on the board, voted 2-1 to rescind the contract with CCI over Hung's objection. The deputies association filed a union grievance for health and safety concerns with Stammitti, who told them he did not have the power to fix the issue but that they had the right to binding arbitration under their contract. Fire departments in several municipalities were working on plans to join the project and pay monthly subscription plans to the radio system when the contract was rescinded. As part of the contract, CCI had 60 days to reach agreements with fire departments or cities that wanted to be part of the new system. The Oberlin and Rochester fire departments also had signed radio system user agreements prior to the contract being rescinded at the county level, according to CCI's lawsuit. Those agreements are only good "if the network contemplated by the contract comes into existence," according to the lawsuit. Elyria was working on a plan to pay monthly maintenance fees to join the system when the contract was rescinded. The plan became "dead in the water" after the commissioners' Jan. 9 vote, Fire Chief Joe Pronesti said. Commissioners respond Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Dan Petticord, the board's legal counsel, said he had no comment on pending litigation. Riddell said he had received a copy of the lawsuit, and that he didn't think it was appropriate to discuss it publicly until after discussing it with Petticord. Moore had no comment on the lawsuit itself but said it was "too bad" CCI sued. "As a county, we're still moving forward on the infrastructure so that our sheriff is taken care of," he said. County officials are meeting with Mission Critical Partners today "and going over some of the miscommunication that's going on," Moore said. "I feel confident that this is something that will be worked out in the next 60 to 90 days," Moore said. "We're going to move forward to make sure the infrastructure is there for what the local communities need. I want us to keep moving forward. I don't want to slow anybody down." In a statement to The Chronicle-Telegram, Hung wrote that CCI fulfilled a promise by one of its attorneys at the Jan. 9 meeting. "Clearly, CCI came to the meeting, they said what they were going to do and now they have done it," Hung wrote, adding that she couldn't comment on the lawsuit itself on advice from legal counsel. But "in a final blow to those attending and watching the meeting, while the feed was still rolling on the 9th, Moore and Riddell shared a disgraceful celebratory fist bump victory with utter disregard for the health, safety and welfare of the residents and the county's first responders," she wrote. Read the lawsuit: CCILawsuit2023.pdf. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.