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IN BUSINESS TRANSPORTATION COMPETITION FOR RTC'S BUS DEAL MOVES FORWARD By Richard N. Velotta senior staff writer A and a more detailed review of technical qualifications. bus transportation company that sued the Regional Transportation Com- mission of Southern Nevada after a nine-month contract stalemate failed to make the cut when the RTC rebid the contract with a revamped process. Cincinnati-based First Transit, the original winning bidder when a seven- year contract was first approved by the RTC board in 2011, won't be moving on to the next step of the process to deter- mine which two transit companies will operate and maintain fixed-route bus service in the Las Vegas Valley. As part of a court settlement with First Transit, the RTC agreed last year that it would use two contractors. The RTC is ic zones, but customers should see no differences in operations. What's more important to riders is First Transit finished fourth among five applicants in an evaluation of the north geographic zone and third among four in the southern zone. Moving on to the second evaluation are Lombard, portation, Ill.-based Veolia Trans- the current operator, and Keolis Transit America, Los Angeles, for the north and south operations, and Dallas-based MV Transportation for the northern operation. Three internal and three external experts performed the evaluations in- stead of an all-internal group used in the previous process. The finalists have until Dec. 13 to sub- splitting service between two geograph- mit bids in the second phase, which will be independent of the first phase. The RTC board is expected to award bids at its February meeting, and the contract will begin in July. that the split is intended to head off a rapid rise in fares and the elimination of some routes. The RTC board unanimously ap- proved advancing three companies to the next evaluation phase. First Transit was eliminated in the first phase of a two-step, best-value re- quest for proposals. The first phase dealt with 11 criteria based on technical qualifications, and applicants' proposals had to score with- in 90 percent of the highest ranked ap- plicant to move on. Applicants that suc- cessfully met the threshold moved to the second step, which involves pricing REAL ESTATE FORECLOSURE RATE SHOOTS BACK UP took effect and helped slow the pace of By Eli Segall staff writer J last month. these public auctions. ust when it seemed Nevada's foreclo- sure rate was improving, the state's vol- Nevada had the second-highest fore- closure rate in the country in October, with 1 in every 352 housing units sad- dled with foreclosure-related filings, ac- cording to a report published Nov. 14 by RealtyTrac. That's up 41 percent from September, when Nevada ranked fifth-worst in the more paperwork before they foreclose on homes. Nevada's foreclosure rate was fifth-highest in the country in both September and August, and sixth-high- est in July. country with 1 in 496 homes in fore- closure. At the same time, it was down 47 percent from October 2011, the same month that Nevada's "robo-signing law" quantumworkplace.com | 402.884.7721 info@quantumworkplace.com Florida was the hardest-hit state last ume of distressed real estate catapulted month with 1 in 312 homes in foreclo- sure. Nationally, 1 in 706 homes was in foreclosure, RealtyTrac says. Nevada led the country for 62 con- secutive months until March, when it dropped to the No. 2 spot. It reclaimed the No. 1 ranking in April but fell to No. 3 in May. The robo-signing law, As- sembly Bill 284, forces banks to provide The RTC board initially approved the First Transit contract, which was about $50 million less over seven years than Veolia's initial proposal. But after legal questions were raised, the board rescinded the vote and was deadlocked 4-4 on taking any other ac- tion. That's when First Transit sued the RTC, asking a District Court judge to or- der the board to reach a decision. In the settlement, First Transit ended its suit, the RTC split the contract and First Transit was allowed to run a para- transit operation for two more years. Let Quantum Workplace help you turn feedback into action and action into better business results. MAKE WORK AWESOME places to work employee best engagement surveys leadership assessments