Court Opinion

ID: 9698531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:52:47.970012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:41.642319
License: Public Domain

PASHMAN, J.,
concurring.
I agree that the Authority was not required to solicit public bids for the totalisator system at the Meadowlands racetrack. As the majority holds, the contract for this system was exempt from the public bidding requirement under both the “professional services” and the “public convenience” exceptions of N.J.S.A. 5:10-21. Because I believe that the majority understates the significance of the “public convenience” exception in this case, I write separately to clarify the meaning of that exception.
In particular, I would avoid any suggestion that the applicability of the “public convenience” exception depends upon the pressures of time, ante at 372. An inference one could draw *374from the majority’s reasoning is that the public convenience exception is not significantly different from the provision of the statute which excuses public bidding when “the exigency of the Authority’s service will not admit [it].” Such an interpretation blurs the distinction between the two exceptions and fails to give full weight to the “public convenience” exception expressly created by the Legislature.
That exception, which also appears in N.J.S.A. 27:120-11.1 (public bidding by New Jersey Expressway Authority) and N.J. S.A. 27:23-6.1 (public bidding by New Jersey Turnpike Authority) is nowhere defined in our law. It is clear, however, that the fundamental inquiry must be the public convenience — that is, how the interest of the public, not that of the governmental entity or any other individual party, will best be served. “Public convenience” is emphatically not a loophole to enable agencies to avoid otherwise operative public bidding requirements merely because it will be easier not to solicit bids. Situations will be rare indeed when reliance on this exception will be justified. This case presents one of those situations.
There are two “publics” whose convenience is at issue here. One consists of the thousands of patrons who bet at the racetrack each day. The other is the people of New Jersey who benefit from the accrual of racetrack revenues as well as from public bidding. The interests of both will be served best if the most reliable totalisator system is used at the track. Reliability is so important to the success of operations at the track and, hence, to the “public convenience,” that selection of the totalisator system in 1978 could not have been subjected to the even limited uncertainties of public bidding.
No one disputes that the totalisator system is vital to the operations of the racetrack. Betting is the business of the track, and the totalisator system is the linchpin of the track’s betting operations. Any failure or malfunctioning of the totalisator system would disrupt betting and greatly inconvenience the patrons of the track. Furthermore, from the perspective of the *375people of the State, such malfunctioning would result not only in substantial lost revenues in the short term, but in the even more damaging long term loss of the good will of the betting public, with consequent loss of money to the State. The “public convenience” includes some assurance that the success of betting operations at the track will not be jeopardized by incurring unnecessary risk of such malfunctioning. However, just this risk would have been created if the Authority had to install any but the best and most reliable totalisator system available.
It seems so obvious as hardly to bear stating that the procurement of a totalisator system is a totally different matter from awarding a contract for such things as, for example, conventional maintenance or technical services. In these latter situations, less than optimal services will not threaten .the foundations of the track’s operations and can gradually be corrected without any serious inroads on the “public convenience.” In striking contrast to a conventional maintenance or service contract, solicitation of public bids on a totalisator system, even the briefest failure of which might be disastrous, was simply inappropriate in 1978 when the Authority sought the contract. The Legislature allowed for this fact by including a “public convenience” exception in the applicable public bidding statute.
The dissent suggests that the Authority could have adequately protected the public convenience by drafting detailed specifications and awarding a contract only to the lowest responsible bidder. Post at 381. This argument overlooks the difficulty of gauging the reliability of a highly complex totalisator system simply by reference to the specifications. Each bidder would attest to the reliability of its system and to the fact that the system meets the Authority’s requirements. Since reliability of the totalisator is critical to the racetrack’s operations, however, the Authority could not depend on the bidder’s assurances. Under the circumstances of this case, the Authority could acquire objective evidence of a system’s reliability in only two ways. It could either give the product a trial, which in this ease proved to be detrimental to the public interest when the system *376failed, or choose a totalisator system that had demonstrated its reliability in actual use elsewhere — the course ultimately followed by the Authority here.
It is also highly significant that the Legislature has very sparingly authorized such an exception to the general requirement of public bidding. Only the statutes applicable to the Sports Authority, the Expressway Authority and the Turnpike Authority contain the public convenience exception. It is not included in the law governing public bidding by municipalities and other governmental units generally. N.J.S.A. 40A:11-1 et seq. One reason for the difference in the public bidding statutes of these three authorities is that the Legislature confirms the appointment of their members.1 Consistently with the greater control it exercises, the Legislature plausibly decided that it could safely give these authorities the discretion to decide when public bidding on a particular contract would not suit the “public convenience.”
I could not agree more with the majority (and the dissent, for that matter) that compelling policy considerations underlie the public bidding statutes and that exceptions to these statutes must be narrowly construed. Ante at 369. This does not mean, however, that the exceptions should be read out of the statute or that courts should prohibit the exercise by the Authority of its statutorily conferred power not to solicit public bids on the rare contracts where, as in this case, the public convenience requires otherwise.

 N.J.S.A. 5:10-4(b) (membership of Sports & Exposition Authority); N.J. S.A. 27:12C-5 (membership of Expressway Authority); N.J.S.A. 27:23-3(B) (membership of Turnpike Authority).