Grace Kirchner Leader Correspondent
As of Jan. 1, Clintonville’s local taxi service will be handled exclusively by Freedom Vans of Bryant – a decision that has the previous taxi service provider crying foul.
“It is really quite upsetting to me,” said Dick Koeppen, operator of Truck City Taxi, which has been the city’s taxi provider for more than two decades.
The Clintonville Common Council voted unanimously Monday night in a special meeting to accept the bid from Freedom Vans, which they said was the only bid they had received by the city’s Oct. 18 deadline.
Koeppen, in addressing the council at its Dec. 12 meeting, said he was unaware the deadline was in October, rather than Nov. 15 as it had been in previous years. He said no one had contacted him to tell him of the new deadline or ask whether he would be placing a bid.
“I take some blame” for missing the deadline, Koeppen said, “but not all because we don’t work together anymore like we used to.”
Koeppen told the council that his contact with the city transit commission is practically nil. “I called city hall, and all of sudden no one could talk to me or answer my emails, because of the bidding process,” said Koeppen.
Koeppen went on to ask the council to reject any and all bids because the process, in his estimation, was unfair. He pointed to his many years of service to the community and said that over the last 25 years, Truck City Taxi had purchased more than 60,000 gallons of gasoline locally and provided more than $710,000 in local wages.
After the closed session, the council came out and voted to accept the bid from Freedom Vans.
The bid with Freedom Vans is for four years, to be re-evaluated after the first two years.