Countywide

Hoping to overcome a legal roadblock delaying the installation of emergency call boxes on San Diego freeways, a county agency Wednesday decided to appeal a local court decision that halted the multimillion-dollar project.

At a special meeting, the county’s Service Authority for Freeway Emergencies (SAFE) instructed its lawyers to ask the state Supreme Court to overturn a ruling last week by the 4th District Court of Appeal that invalidated a contract awarded by the agency for the installation of emergency telephones for stranded motorists along the county’s 300-mile freeway system.

The call box project is an outgrowth of public pressure for increased freeway safety after one woman motorist was slain and another was raped at gunpoint when their cars broke down two years ago.

In June, the SAFE board--which consists of elected officials from the county and local cities--awarded a $9.6-million contract to Comarco Inc. of Anaheim to install and maintain 963 cellular telephones along the freeways over the next 10 years.

But San Diego-based Cubic Corp., which submitted a bid that was $1.1 million less than Comarco’s, challenged the contract in court. Last month, Superior Court Judge Richard D. Huffman nullified the contract, ruling that it violated state competitive bidding laws.

While SAFE officials argue that the state Legislature specifically exempted the agency from competitive bidding procedures, the 4th District court upheld Huffman’s ruling.

Granville Bowman, SAFE’s executive director, said agency lawyers will file their appeal by next week and hope for a Supreme Court ruling within two months.

“Once we get the green light,” Bowman said, the call box installation can be completed within six months. However, if SAFE ultimately is forced to rebid the project, “we’re obviously looking at a much longer delay,” he said.