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Assistant County Attorney Terry O'Brien addressed points in the letter from Joseph Lawrence of Cummings, Lawrence & Vezina and advised that denying their client their constitutional right was the farthest thing from his mind in making his recommendation to the Board in this matter. He wanted to be in court on this matter because we are at a very bad disadvantage under these facts concerning this case. The County is being sued by Cummings and Martin, and the County is the sole player that has done nothing wrong and will be the only party at risk. If the arbitration panel decides we owe money to Martin and Cummings, we have to pay them. In order to recover that money, we have to go to court to sue the architect, who will bring in the engineer, who will bring in the vendor, and the County will have to prove certain elements that will be very difficult to prove. Attorney O'Brien read the following excerpt from his letter to Mr. Lawrence dated March 30, 1995: Your client has had the benefit of discovery of all County documents under the public records law. The County does not enjoy that privilege and advantage. The County, therefore, requests certain limited discovery concerning documents that are in the possession of your client. Specifically, would you please send me a copy of all field reports or other reports from the contractor's field supervisor or Martin Paving concerning the Infiltrator System. The records were never sent. Attorney O'Brien described Mr. Lawrence's second paragraph comments as absolutely contrary to the fact and detailed the sequence of events of the attempt at mediation and in his estimation there was no mediation whatsoever. He felt it was actually bad faith on the part of the attorney representing Martin & Cummings. Attorney O'Brien suggested the Board consider for future bids, all aspects of the bidders' profile, as enumerated under Section 105.04(g), F. S. This would allow selection of the bidder who would fit the overall best interest of the County, but would not prevent anyone from submitting a bid, it could just go into the equation when bids were considered. Chairman Macht understood Attorney O'Brien's recommendation was to reject any request for arbitration and proceed to circuit court. Attorney O'Brien agreed that was his recommendation and added, as a matter of fact, that he had filed a complaint for declaratory judgment asserting our rights, challenging the arbitration. Mr. Lawrence's motion to dismiss was just recently denied. So the 59 July 18, 1995 BOOK 5 F'AGE 759