The ‘fair’ thing to do at the Market Place

Ding! It’s the end of this match -- a bidding rather than a boxing

match for who gets to operate the Orange County Market Place.

And after being entrenched in controversy since last year about

how to most fairly lease Orange County Fairgrounds parking lot space

for a popular weekend swap meet, a grand total of one bidder for that

lease remains standing.

We’re glad that it’s the homegrown Tel-Phil Enterprises, which has

established the Market Place. Out of three potential contenders, it

was only Tel-Phil Enterprises that submitted bids earlier this month

for a lease on the property and seems poised to enter yet another

term running the market.

On the hometown level, we’re satisfied that Tel-Phil Enterprises

remains the right fit to run the market. The local company deserves

that chance, since its employees have made it a staple of weekend

life in the area.

Bob Teller started the swap meet 35 years ago, and since then it

has evolved into a high-caliber operation selling almost everything,

including fruits and vegetables and Rolls-Royces.

Tel-Phil Enterprises has maintained a level of success at the

market that has been unrivaled. But it can also thank some committed

fans for boosting its profile in the area. Earlier this year at a

fair board meeting, several speakers touted the Tellers’ commitment

to the Market Place and the community in a meeting that turned into a

kind of pep rally for the Tellers.

“I think when we talk about fairness of process, [it’s] also

fairness to reward the organization that does so much to the

community and gives back so much,” Vanguard University President

Murray Dempster said.

In 1991, when the lease was last up for bid, eight companies vied

for it. Fair officials insisted that the board chose Tel-Phil

Enterprises based on the highest overall score, not the highest

financial return.

Still, we urge the fair board to be vigilant when it comes to

opening up the process for accepting bids, if only to keep Tel-Phil

Enterprises on its toes.

In this round of drawing up proposals for bids, it got ugly and it

was slow. First, last year the board scrapped the bidding process

after tension arose between Tel-Phil Enterprises and Delaware North,

a New York-based company that operates hospitality and event venues

at large-scale sites such as Kennedy Space Center and Yosemite

National Park. Delaware was bashed. Then the board sought outside

consultants to draw up a more equitable process of requesting

proposals for bids. But the board then rejected all the bids from

consultants because fair officials said none of them had the needed

experience with lease agreements. So, fair officials drew up the

requests in-house.

Delaware North consultant Jeff Flint said in a recent Pilot

article that Delaware officials believed there was a “bias in favor

of the incumbent.” We’re not so sure about that, but the process

could use some streamlining to make sure that all bidders are given a

fair hearing.

After all, what kind of marketplace is it without competition?