The ongoing battle between two New Jersey ferry companies will continue after judges ordered a do-over for the contract to run a lucrative commuter route to and from New York City on Tuesday.
The dispute that started in 2022 is back on after an appellate court panel ruled that Monmouth County has to rebid the contract it awarded to Seastreak ferry two years ago. The contract had been contested by rival NY Waterway.
The April 2 ruling reversed the decision of the trial court, requiring the contract to be re-advertised for new bids. Officials for one ferry company were not immediately available for comment.
The decision should not affect ferry commuters, said Monmouth County Special County Counsel John M. Glynn.
“In the aftermath of the decision by the Appellate Division, the County will further review the Appellate Division’s determination and evaluate its potential next steps,” he said. “There will be no interruption in service during this interim period and SeaStreak will continue to provide ferry service under its contract with the County until this litigation is finally concluded or until a new contract for these services is awarded.”
Monmouth’s Board of County Commissioner’s voted on June 21, 2022, to select Seastreak ferry to run commuter ferry service that NY Waterway had run for almost 20 years. The county owns and runs a commuter ferry terminal in the Belford section of Middletown.
“We submitted a proposal which, while offering better service at lower fares than any other bidder, was rejected by the county on a technicality,” NY Waterway officials said in a statement. ”We are grateful that the New Jersey Appellate Court has now voided that rejection and ordered a rebid of the contract.
“We look forward to resubmitting our proposal for consideration, based on its merits.”
The appellate court ruling reversed a Nov. 2, 2022, decision by Superior Court Judge David F. Bauman who dismissed NY Waterway’s lawsuit against the county and Seastreak.
Seastreak began running commuter ferry service on Dec. 5, 2022.
The appellate judges determined the county should not have used a hybrid bidding process in 2021 when the contract was advertised as an “extraordinary unspecifiable service.”
In 1999 the county did not declare it an extraordinary unspecifiable service when it put out requests for proposals for ferry service.
The appellate court determined the county failed to filed paperwork detailing the technical reasons why the 2021 contract needed to be deemed an exception to regular public bidding process.
NY Waterway has argued that the county should be required to rebid the ferry services because it failed to comply with the procedural requirements for an extraordinary unspecifiable service.
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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry
