Tel Phil offers the one and only bid

Deirdre Newman and Alicia Robinson

A second round of bids to lease the fairgrounds parking lot -- where

a weekend swap meet takes place -- concluded on Friday, and there was

only one name in the pot. It was the current swap meet operator, Tel

Phil Enterprises.

A first round of bidding was abandoned last year after it became

mired in controversy.

Bids, submitted to Orange County Fair officials, were for a

10-year lease of the property.

What’s significant is who did not submit a bid -- Delaware North,

a privately-owned company based in New York that operates hospitality

and event venues at large-scale tourist attractions like the Kennedy

Space Center and Yosemite National Park.

Delaware North was the only bidder to compete against Tel Phil

last year. It was frequently bashed by vendors and supporters of Tel

Phil’s swap meet, known as the Orange County Market Place, during

public hearings on the previous bidding process. Delaware North was

criticized for wanting to take over a homegrown success and for

mismanaging swap meets it has run in other parts of the country.

The company did not submit a bid this time, because officials

didn’t feel they had an opportunity to maximize their financial

contribution to the fair, Delaware North consultant Jeff Flint said.

“Delaware North feels they do a very quality operation and can put

together a proposal to show that,” Flint said. “But we feel there was

a bias in favor of the incumbent. So the opportunity to distinguish

ourselves would have been on the financial proposal, where we think

the incumbent did not offer the district fair market value. And when

they chose to cap the percentage of royalties that a swap meet

operator could give to the [fair] district, it really restricted

Delaware North’s opportunity to distinguish themselves from Tel

Phil.”

Representatives of Tel Phil could not be reached for comment

Friday.

Bob Teller founded the Orange County Market Place in 1969. His

son, Jeff, now runs it through Tel Phil.

Renewing the lease has been an elusive process. The fair board

threw out a round of bids in July 2003 after the process became

bogged down in controversy. Earlier this year board members also

scrapped proposals from consultants hoping to help with the bidding

process. Fair board members ended up creating a new request for bids

themselves, with the help of legal counsel and staff members.

This time around, three companies attended a pre-bid meeting: Tel

Phil, Delaware North and Newport Diversified, said fair chief

executive Becky Bailey-Findley.

“Until the deadline passed [Friday], we did not know if all or

none of those bidders were going to participate,” she said.

Tel Phil’s bid will be evaluated under the same timeline and rules

as if it were competing with additional bidders. The fair board is

likely to discuss awarding a contract at its Jan. 27 meeting,

Bailey-Findley said. Board members still have the option of rejecting

the bid.