Brega Speaks Up About Bus Bids to Legislature

Rockland County is in the process of finding a company to run its two major bus services—Transport of Rockland, or TOR, and Tappan ZEExpress—through competitive bidding. However, the bidding qualifications eliminate all local bus companies.

Richard Brega Jr spoke out about this issue at Tuesday night’s legislative meeting. He owns the Brega Transport Corp. in Valley Cottage.

“The county has put out a new bid that excludes any and all Rockland transportation companies. In the specifications, there is not one Rockland County bus company that can comply with this bid,” said Brega.

This is not the first time Brega has confronted the county with contract bidding issues.

“There is a transportation bid that was put out.

I’m the fellow that … fought the county the first time it was put out and the court sided with me and threw out the request for the proposal and asked for it to become a request so that low bid wins,” he said referring to a Supreme Court judge ruling in November last year siding with Brega. Brega claimed that “the county rigged the bids to favor MV Transportation, the largest transportation firm in the nation,” according to the Rockland County Times. Now the county is court ordered to award the busing contract to the lowest, responsible bidder.

“A little while back, there was a bid proposed for bus service in the county. What happened was, because of the court intervention, the county was directed to essentially rebid and better quantify the bids,” said Legislator Ed Day. “We just heard that the bids were put out and they’re due back on March 16. What Mr. Brega was speaking on …  was that the way he views the bidding is that it eliminates the potential of any local company from competing … then, by default, it would go to the only other bid company that is outside of the county.”

Legislator Ed Day added that he spoke to Legislator Michael Grant, who is chair of the Planning and Public Works committee and plans to add it as an agenda item.

“There are bus companies in almost every town. They will be disqualified because they put in qualifications that cannot be met,” said Brega. “There is over $1.5 million of extra technology required to be put in. This bid and the county are asking contractors to supply it instead of the county going out and procuring it.”

Brega explained that the bid qualifications are “ridiculous” and require bus companies to include expensive technological features.

“That’s really embarrassing for this county,” said Legislator Jay Hood. “We should certainly be trying to be fostering business in Rockland County. I’m not saying favoritism, … but we have to at least make it fair enough for businesses in Rockland to participate in the bidding process.”

“Everything this county does has to go through a bidding process. Anyone can bid from here to California to Timbuktu,” said Raymond Smith, a Rockland resident, adding that he did not think it was fair that bid qualifications eliminated all local companies.