On Wednesday (Feb. 17th), STITA and Farwest taxi companies sent letters to Washington State Auditor Brian Sonntag and Attorney General Rob McKenna, urging an investigation into the Port of Seattle.
This follows a recent, fast-paced rash of two lawsuits filed against the Port for its alleged mishandling of switching cab vendors over from STITA to Yellow Cab (read our previous coverage here).
The letter to the State Auditor asks him to investigate the Port’s handing of the entire on-demand taxicab RFP (Request For Proposal) process, which resulted in the two recent lawsuits.
The letter to Attorney General McKenna requests not only for an investigation of the Port, but also of lobbyist Chris Van Dyk, who is accused of collusion in the RFP process (EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Van Dyk appears to have made numerous Comments on this website – see the Comment section in our right sidebar).
“It’s time for the auditor and the attorney general to step in,” said STITA spokesperson Jesse Buttar in a statement. “We hope they will take a careful look at the allegations against the Port.”
We got in touch with Perry Cooper, Media Officer for the Port, who said:
“Understand we have just received this and will review our records again…but we are still emphasizing that we are confident the RFP and bidding process was fair, open and transparent.
We have reviewed our approach continually throughout a thoughtful and thorough RFP and bidding process.
We are aware of no facts that would support allegations of collusion.
At no time during the process did anyone file an official complaint.
We were not aware of these allegations until the suit was filed.”
Both letters are enclosed below, and are available also for download here (both as PDF files):
- Letter to State Auditor Sonntag (PDF File)
- Letter to Attorney General McKenna (PDF File)
