BIDDEFORD — A telecommunications company that is partly owned by a Biddeford city councilor’s wife has stated it will seek restitution from the City of Biddeford, in relation to a telephone contract that was awarded to another company.

In a letter to the city, the company’s CEO stated he is seeking restitution because the city violated its request for proposals.

In May, the city issued a request for proposals for a new company to provide external telephone service because some city officials said they were unhappy with its current provider, One Communications.

Two proposal were submitted, one from Great Works Internet and one from XATel, LLC, both of Biddeford.

XATel is owned partly by Roland Lawler, chief executive officer, and until early June, it was also partly owned by City Councilor David Bourque. On June 1, the day the proposals were reviewed by the Finance Committee, Bourque’s 50 percent share was transferred to his wife.

In previous discussions about the contract, when Bourque had made it known his company was interested in the contract, city attorney Keith Jacques had advised that the City Charter states the city could not award a contract to a company in which a councilor had a “substantial financial interest.”

When the bids were discussed before the Finance Committee, Information Technology Director Jerry Gerlach said GWI’s proposal was lower than XATel’s. In addition, he said, GWI had references that it provided similar service to that required by the city to other municipalities, while XATel did not.

The Finance Committee then voted to award the contract to GWI.

In the letter submitted to the city by XATel last week, Lawler claims five counts of violations by the city including: The competing bidder (GWI) is reselling FairPoint service, which is not allowed by the proposal request; the competing bidder did not meet the required 30-day deadline for providing service; the competing bidder is not a telephone company; the competing bidder was aware it couldn’t offer “land line Plain Old Telephone service,’” and the city portrayed XATel as not being able to fulfill (the city’s) needs; and the company “was belittled to the public.”

In the letter by Lawler, he wrote, “We here at XATel communications were insulted and disappointed with the City of Biddeford decision making. XATel will seek restitution and advise the city of Biddeford to work out a solution before pursuing its next move.”

Gerlach said many of the charges are untrue because the records on which Lawler based his claims are those for One Communications, not GWI, because GWI hasn’t yet taken over the city’s telephone service.

The new company hasn’t taken over service yet, said Gerlach, because of time constraints and other issues on the city’s side, not because of problems with GWI.

Gerlach also denied that he “belittled” the company when he said that he couldn’t find references that XATel had provided previous services on the scale the city required.

In an e-mail statement from GWI’s attorney, Eric Samp, Samp wrote GWI is a telephone company “within the meaning of Maine law.” Samp noted the company’s official name is Biddeford Internet Corporation, which is listed as a telephone company in an exhibit submitted with XATel’s letter.

Additionally, Samp denied other charges by XATel and wrote, “We do not and are not proposing to offer resold FairPoint Services. We can and do provide land line telephone service in Biddeford and throughout much of Maine.”

He added that the company followed the procedures specified by the city in its proposal request.

“It all comes back to this is why the charter is in place and says what it says,” said Gerlach. He added that he feels, as a city employee, he shouldn’t be put in the middle of this situation and would like the backing of the City Council.

Neither Roland Lawler nor David Bourque returned calls to the Journal Tribune prior to press time.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.