Countywide : Supervisors Award Contract to Phone Firms

The Board of Supervisors unanimously awarded a lucrative three-year contract to provide public telephone service in county buildings and at John Wayne Airport to its existing contractors--Pacific Bell and AT&T.;

Several other companies seeking to win the contract complained that the bidding process was unfair because they were denied key information by the county needed to formulate their bids. But supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley said the county “cooperated fully” with all competing companies. The board’s vote to give the contracts to Pacific Bell and AT&T; was 5-0.

Pacific Bell will pay the county at least $263,000 a year for 222 county telephones and 63 airport telephones. AT&T; will pay at least $140,000 to provide long-distance service for the same telephones. The payment is in exchange for controlling those phone lines and phones. The projected fees are four times the amount paid by the two firms to the county last year, a result of deregulation of the pay-phone industry in 1988, officials said.

This is the first year of competitive bidding for the contracts.