Chamber President Richard Perez joined local leaders at a press conference on January 8 to announce flaws they say existed in the evaluation criteria for the NBAF site selection, and they used the press conference to urge the Department of Homland Security to reevaluate its Final Environmental Impact Statement in light of serveral critical errors.
Perez joined Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, Bexar County Commissioner Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez, Councilwoman Delicia Herrera, and John Kerr, Chairman of the Texas Bio Agro-Defense Coalition, to announce that an official letter of comment has been sent to the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding the recommended location for the NBAF.
In December DHS announced it would recommend that the facility be placed in Manhattan, Kansas. However local leaders of the efforts to bring the facility to San Antonio expressed strong disappointment that the state’s incentives for the laboratory were not considered in the decision, negatively affecting the local bid.
"Homeland Security violated federal bidding regulations when it changed the requirements for bids late in the process – and made it virtually impossible for Texas to put together a reasonable plan," said Kerr.
San Antonio leaders said the last minute change in the site selection criteria and the imposition of clearly unreasonable time limitations were fundamentally unfair and violated federally mandated standards. "TBAC is confident that it offers the suporior site for the NBAF under the original critiera," said Kerr. "And, if considered fairly on the new financial support criterion, [our package] will demonstrate this site is the superior one for NBAF
under all criteria."
See stories below for more information on the NBAF:
SA shakes fist over decision on federal lab (Express-News, Jan. 9, 2009)
Bio-agro effort gained city valuable exposure (San Antonio Business Journal, Dec. 26, 2008)
SA hasn’t given up on bio lab (Express-News, Dec. 4, 2008)
Texas offering $100 million in incentives to gain bio-agro defense facility (San Antonio Business Journal, Oct. 9, 2008)