Lansford Borough Council never discussed or publicly authorized a bid it submitted for the purchase of road repair equipment from the Carbon County Council of Governments, a former councilman said.

Bob Silver, who regularly attends council meetings, said he requested information after learning that the county’s Council of Governments accepted the borough’s bid of $60,576.75 for a 2017 Asphalt Zipper.

He found that the only discussion on the proposed purchase occurred in a closed-door executive session, according to Right to Know Law requests he filed with the borough.

“The discussion of the bid for the Asphalt Zipper took place in executive session, so it is not in the minutes,” the borough said in response to Silver’s request.

Silver believes the bid and purchase is illegal, as borough council must conduct business publicly at an advertised meeting, and not behind closed doors in executive session with very few exceptions.

“They did something they shouldn’t have done,” he said. “They cannot do anything in executive session.”

An attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association agreed that any official action and discussion must take place publicly under the state’s Sunshine Act.

“There is no executive session that would permit private deliberation about purchasing equipment,” Melissa Melewsky said.

There is an exception under the law to discuss the purchase or lease of real estate, meaning land or buildings, but it does not apply to discussions about buying supplies, equipment or vehicles, she said.

“Authorizing a bid to purchase equipment is official action that must take place at a public meeting,” Melewsky said. “Likewise, the discussion about this issue should have taken place at a public meeting.”

Lansford Council President Bruce Markovich said the borough did submit a sealed bid for the Asphalt Zipper, and borough council will authorize the purchase at its meeting next week.

He said that since it was a sealed bid, council couldn’t disclose it at a public meeting.

“You can’t do a sealed bid at a public meeting,” Markovich said, noting that if the amount was disclosed publicly, someone could bid higher. “How do you submit a private sealed bid at a public meeting?”

The actual purchase has not been made, he said. No money has changed hands and the COG still owns the equipment, Markovich said.

“They have not received any payment from Lansford, nor has there been any transfer of ownership,” he said.

Silver asked the borough for a copy of the check and account charged, but was told that there was no transaction or check written.

Kara Scott, chair of the county COG, confirmed the purchase has not been completed, but Lansford was notified that the COG accepted the bid - the only one it received.

The COG, which is comprised of member municipalities in the county, bought the equipment for shared use among its member communities, but it was seldom used, prompting the sale, she said.

The COG gave its members the option to buy the Asphalt Zipper first, before opening the sale up to others, Scott said. It also asked for sealed bids for transparency reasons, as no one would see the bids beforehand and they’d be opened at a public meeting, she said.

Melewsky said agencies such as a borough council receive sealed bids from private contractors, but they don’t typically submit them because “public policy demands transparency, where public funding is concerned.

“If the COG is requiring local governments to submit secret bids, it creates transparency problems for the bidding agencies and could also create Sunshine Act and possible Right to Know Law issues for them,” Melewsky said.

Scott said as far as she knew everything was done “on the up and up,” and the COG was trying to be “extraordinarily fair and right.”

The COG is an organization designed to bring representatives from different communities together to work on shared problems and find solutions to benefit all of them, she said.

Scott said she did not understand the secrecy on the part of Lansford Borough in the bidding process.

Melewsky said there is no exemption in the Sunshine Act that would allow votes or decisions to occur privately.

“The only place a decision can be made is at a public meeting and only after there’s been an opportunity for public comment,” she said.

Ratifying a decision at a later public meeting “does not remove potential liability under the law, nor does it do anything to address the lack of public input on the decision,” Melewsky said.

Further, ratifying a decision should be a one-time situation where an agency admits that “they got it wrong the first time and pledges to follow the law more closely in the future,” she said.