From the Niagara Falls Review:
It has had more than 11 months to pick a winner, but the Niagara Parks Commission says its evaluation team needs more time.
More than a year and a half after a long-term operator for boat tours at the base of the Horseshoe Falls was originally supposed to be found, NPC officials said Thursday the team making the decision needs another “five or six weeks,” before announcing a winning bidder.
The deal will be worth a minimum of $5.5 million per year, not including the commission’s share of annual revenue from ticket and souvenir sales.
Chairwoman Janice Thomson had said she expected to announce who would be awarded a 25-year lease to operate boat tours near the falls by the end of 2011, but she told The Niagara Falls Review the complex process to select a winner is still underway.
OMG!!!!! I think this process to fix the secret, screwed up process is even worse. We don’t know who the bidders are, who is evaluating the bids, what the criteria is, why it is taking so long (do they/he/she only look at things on the first Monday morning of each month???). In the mean time. the existing Maid of the Mist can’t do any long term planning (past this year it would now seem). Just a total farce.
I spoke to one person today who half-seriously joked that the delay is because one of the companies came in with a better bid than the existing Maid of the Mist and they NPC is trying to figure out how to reject the better bid to stick with MOTM.
I don’t know what is going on behind closed doors, but it is ridiculous that it is taking so long.