MidWeek cannot bid State officials are pulling the plug on MidWeek Printing Inc.'s $600,000-a-year contract to publish state and county public notices, a move that will lead to a bidding war between Honolulu's two daily newspapers.
for legal ads, state says
The comptroller says the state
wants to run its legal ads in daily,
not weekly papersBy Rick Daysog
rdaysog@starbulletin.comIn a bid invitation issued Dec. 21, the state Department of Accounting and General Services said MidWeek is not eligible to bid on the public notice contract, which it has handled for the past three years.
State Comptroller Glenn Okimoto said the state wants to publish its legal ads in daily newspapers rather than in a weekly because of the frequency of publication.
While the state has not received any complaints about MidWeek, several state and county agencies were concerned that their public notices, including legal ads and procurement notices, were not going out on a timely basis, Okimoto said.
He noted that MidWeek's affiliate paper, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, will be eligible to take part in the bidding. The bid deadline is Jan. 14.
David Black, whose Black Press Ltd. acquired MidWeek and the Star-Bulletin last year, said he will send a letter to state officials contesting the decision to exclude MidWeek.
MidWeek, a free weekly with a circulation of about 270,000, charges a lower rate and has a greater reach than the Star-Bulletin and Gannett Co.'s Honolulu Advertiser, Black said.
Black also cited a March 19, 1999, opinion by the Attorney General's office stating that MidWeek qualifies as a newspaper of general circulation for publishing public notices. That opinion concluded that the state's objective is to assure that its public notices are read by as many people as possible.
"It surprises me that state procurement officials elected to terminate the contract after three years," Black said. "It dismays me that they will leave MidWeek out of the bidding for the next contract."
The original 1998 state contract was for three years. The deal also gave the state the option to extend its contract with MidWeek for two additional one-year periods.
But on Nov. 27, then-Comptroller Wayne Kimura informed MidWeek that he would not renew its contract and would put it out for bid as a one-year contract.
Kimura, who stepped down as comptroller Dec. 1 to become a member of the Public Utilities Commission, also said he planned to award separate one-year contracts to dailies in each county.
That plan, which is spelled out in last month's bid invitation document, requires the local newspapers to have a minimum circulation in their districts.
Those circulation figures must be verified by an independent audit.
For instance, daily newspapers in Hilo and Maui, The Hawaii Tribune-Herald and the Maui News, need 15,000 subscribers to qualify while the Kailua-Kona newspaper, West Hawaii Today, needs 10,000 readers. Kauai's daily, the Garden Island, must have 7,000 readers. Oahu's two dailies, the Star-Bulletin and the Advertiser, each need a daily circulation of 60,000.
That requirement would have excluded the Star-Bulletin since the most recent independent audit placed the Star-Bulletin's average daily, paid circulation at 59,782. The audit, which covered the 50 weeks ending March 14, was conducted by Schaumburg, Ill.-based Audit Bureau of Circulations.
But Okimoto said his office is willing to amend the bid rules to allow the Star-Bulletin to qualify.
Okimoto said his office was not aware that the bid qualifications would have excluded the Star-Bulletin from taking part in the bid process.
Aaron Fujioka, administrator of the state Procurement Office, said employees relied on an unaudited publisher's statement this fall that listed the Star-Bulletin's daily circulation at around 64,000 when they drafted the bid documents. The Honolulu Advertiser, based on an Audit Bureau of Circulations' audit conducted at its request, lists its daily circulation at 151,808.
"We don't want to exclude anybody," Okimoto said. "We wanted to get competition in here."
Black said that if MidWeek's exclusion is upheld, the Star-Bulletin will submit a bid.
The Advertiser also will submit a bid, according to Mike Fisch, the daily's president and publisher.
The Advertiser's former business arm, the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, published the state's legal notices for more than 20 years before losing the contract to MidWeek three years ago.
Back then, the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin -- working under a joint operating agreement that allowed the two dailies to share costs and revenues -- were disqualified after they delivered their bid to the state procurement office four minutes after the deadline.
The Star-Bulletin and the Advertiser have competed head-on for advertising and circulation since March 15, when Black took over the Star-Bulletin and the joint operating agreement was dissolved.