Commissioners Closer to Awarding Communications Contract

The Board of Commissioners appear to have narrowed the choice for the next borough communications contractor. It was easy because only two providers bid on the contract to write media releases, newsletters and other media. A decision is expected as soon.

Suasion Communications Group of Egg Harbor and The Gumnut Group of Haddonfield are the finalists. Suasion’s bid was dramatically lower for a list of desired services, such as design of print ad for special event and writing the borough’s Municipal Matters newsletter.

Suasion bid $240 and up to $210 for the design of a print ad and compiling each edition of the bimonthly Municipal Matters, respectively. Gumnut bid $495 and $395 for the same services, two of nine for which the borough requested bids. Suasion bid $720 for the "writing and design of a newsletter." Gumnut bid $1,950 for the same service.

Suasion also has a contract for the borough’s business improvement district, the Partnership for Haddonfield. They are paid about $2,400 per month for media publicity services.

Despite the lower bid by Suasion for the pending borough communications contract, Mayor Tish Colombi recently said she may still prefer Gumnut, which has held the borough’s communications contract for most of the last two decades. Fellow commissioner, Jeff Kasko, became quite animated in objecting to going with Gumnut during a work session last month. Both commissioners agreed that getting information about municipal government to residents had to improve.

Gumnut was dramatically underbid last year by the rival Elauwit company, publisher of the Haddonfield Sun and several other weekly newspapers in South Jersey. Gumnut publishes What’s On Haddonfieldand What’s On Collingswood, which it bills as a calendar of events and not a newspaper.

The Sun won the bid last year by undercutting Gumnut and David Hunter, its publisher who is a long-time supporter of Colombi. Hunter had held the contract since the borough started outsourcing its communications services nearly two decades ago.

The Sun has said in published editorials that it bid on the contract to “save taxpayer money.” It contends Hunter’s fees, which in some years were as much as $22,000, were excessive. The Sun won last year’s contract with a bid of $7,200 and had been paid $3,821.50 through mid-January. The Sun donated proceeds from the contract to a local nonprofit last month, according to a published report.

Published reports over the last five years in the Sun and The Retrospect, a weekly paper that covers several Camden County towns including Haddonfield, have criticized Hunter's contracts. The reports raised questions about his work on past political campaigns of Colombi.

Hunter has dismissed allegations of favoritism. He said he has been “a close friend” and supporter of Colombi for years, but his work for the borough handled a number of tasks, including creating and writing theMunicipal Matters newsletter and publishing it in his newspaper. Colombi said allegations of favoritism were unfounded.

“The best person got the job,” she said in March. “I think some of this is just sour grapes.”

Hunter said then he didn’t bid on the contract this year because he “wasn’t interested in playing [the Sun’s] game.” He said the Sun was only interested in wresting away business he had with the borough. But he relented and submitted a bid on May 4.

The Sun published an editorial on March 2 challenging the borough to stop paying for media services. It said the borough could save money by writing its newsletter in-house and publishing it on its website.