Food Truck Concession Redo

Mobile food concession in the Town of East Hampton, which, is once again on the town board's agenda for Thursday evening.

But this year, the process for mobile food concessions being awarded those spaces will be slightly different.

To deal with the popularity of food trucks, the town board passed legislation last year that required vendors submit request for proposals for certain beach ends. This year, they will be based on sealed bids.

The RFPs in 2011 were not just monetary, but based on a points system where monetary, experience, and other factors were weighted. The board chose a handful of residents to look at the bids to value them. In the weighted system as it was carried out last year, some local food truck owners were going to lose their spaces.

An online movement began to "," one long-time popular food cart at the entrance in Montauk. Town board members were flooded with emails begging them to reconsider and a rally was planned. Supervisor Bill Wilkinson even .

But soon after, . They explained at the time that it was not a response to the outrage over the Ditch Witch, Beach Dog and others not getting the spaces they had long sold from during summers. .

Town Deputy Clerk Carole Brennan said this year a bidding process will be used instead, which she said is more straight forward. Instead of weighted responses, the highest bid that meets the specifications wins the spot.

Deputy Supervisor Theresa Quigley said there is also no minimum bid as there was in last year's system.

Quigley is sponsoring the resolution on Thursday night to put out the notice for bid, but she said that is because she is the liaison to the town attorney's office. She said she was surprised the decision to change the process from RFP to a bid hadn't sparked a discussion at the work session on Tuesday when she presented the resolution.

If the town board decides to move forward, bids for mobile food concessions will have to be received by the purchasing department by March 22 at 1 p.m. Specifications may be picked up Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. (except for holidays) beginning on Feb. 23.

The board is also expected to vote on a resolution to schedule a public hearing on an amendment to the peddling law that will take the end of South Lake Drive in Montauk off the books and add in South Otis Drive in Montauk, which is a dirt lot at one end of Ditch Plains.

Quigley said it had been determined that South Lake Drive wasn't a desirable spot. The Turf Lobster Truck, which had almost been awarded the Ditch Witch's spot during last year's debacle, had set up at South Otis Drive. "It seemed to work well," Quigley said. "People seemed ot enjoy it and it didn't cause problems for the vendor at the next beach over."

The hearing will be held in March.