TRUMBULL COUNTY Commissioners approve plan to bid contracts for jail food

One commissioner said he suggested the bidding procedure three years ago.
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners have unanimously approved allowing companies to bid for a contract, worth more than $250,000 a year, to provide food to inmates at the Trumbull County Jail and Juvenile Detention Center.
They directed the county purchasing director Wednesday to prepare specifications for potential bidders.
"I'm in favor of bidding it out," Commissioner Joseph Angelo Jr. said. During a meeting Wednesday, Angelo questioned remarks fellow commissioner Michael O'Brien made to The Vindicator, that there had not been support for bidding the contract in the past.
"If you had made a motion to bid it out, I would have seconded it," Angelo said. "You had never asked for my support."
O'Brien said he suggested bidding the jail-food contract at a meeting three years ago with the two other commissioners, the county sheriff and a representative from a food service company. The food service company was losing business with the jail and wanted to find out how it could turn that around.
"I said, 'Why don't we just bid it out?'" O'Brien said.
He said none of the other commissioners answered, and the meeting just moved on.