Carroll County Government Posts Bid Request for Communications Position

A call for bids for the Communications/Public Information Services job was posted on the Carroll County government website this week.

This position has been a point of controversy since late summer when the previous public information officer resigned and the commissioners hired a media consultant on a three-month contract paying $6,000 per month.

and letters to the editor of the Carroll County Times have questioned the qualifications of the consultant, Jim Simpson, who is known for his writings on blogs and websites such as American Thinker.

In an article on American Thinker, titled The Left's Ludicrous Accusations Against Tea Partiers, Simpson said, "That the Left is systematically trying to smear such great people just demonstrates what cockroaches they really are."

Sykesville resident Jack White said in a recent Times letter to the editor, "Simpson is not a professional public relations person. As I see it, he is merely a master of hate speech."

Board of Commissioners President Doug Howard said that the board wanted a media person who could communicate effectively with citizens.

"Jim has had some success in his own right. We knew that he had some strong beliefs so that was something we weighed at the time and decided to give it a try," Howard said.

Howard said the commissioners stayed true to their plan in hiring a media consultant.

"I would think that the voters should recognize that we did exactly what we said we were going to do--we were going to do this for a limited period of time, give it a shot, and then put it out to open competitive bid and that is exactly what we did," Howard said.

"Legally, we could have just hired him [Simpson] and no one would have said anything," he added.

Commissioner Richard Rothschild said that Simpson was hired to complete special projects and build relationships with media outlets.

"The decision to create this position was part and parcel of eliminating a position that cost taxpayers twice as much money," Rothschild said. "We eliminated the director of administrative services position that was costing the taxpayers approximately $110,000 a year with benefits."

The board of commissioners extended Simpson's contract in September.

"The decision to extend his contract was a derivitive of the fact that the open competitive bidding process couldn't take place fast enough in terms of being done before his current contract was scheduled to be done," Howard said.

The job posting says Carroll County is soliciting proposals for Public Information/Media Services as an independent contractual service. Proposals will be received until Nov. 15 at 10:30 a.m. at the Carroll County Bureau of Purchasing in the county office building.