After touting a $2 million contract to launch six COVID-19 vaccination sites throughout Jersey City, the administration decided to pull the emergency resolution put in front of the council last week after it “appeared the vendor could not meet the standards.”
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The emergency resolution in front of the city council from Wednesday evening would have awarded a $501,000 contract to Fixtech Medical USA, Inc.
Within the final few minutes of Wednesday’s session, Acting Business Administrator John Metro said that the resolution was being “withdrawn by the administration for further review.”
Accompanying documents do not explain where the $2 million figure came from, but city spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said that “the $2 million includes all associated costs and it will be outlined in the resolution at the next meeting for clarity.”
She said that a new resolution will be before the council at their next council meeting, which is scheduled for January 4th, 2021.
“In an effort to expedite the process to establish city-run sites for an immediate vaccination rollout, it appeared the vendor could not meet the standards and therefore it was pulled,” Wallace-Scalcione added.
“We expect to have a resolution on the next agenda to meet the same timeline we indicated that we would achieve. The Compliance Team is currently reviewing new proposals.”
The Fixtech proposal indicated that the first testing site would be delivered in January for “testing and comments” and the other five to be delivered by the end of March.
Steven Kaitz, at the time a 56-year-old Jersey City resident, was sentenced to 40 months in prison by New York U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff back in September 9th, 2015.
He was one of the three executives of Projuban, LLC, a New Jersey-based company that manufactured and designed displays for retailers worldwide, who pleaded guilty to defrauding lenders and customers out of millions of dollars.
Kaitz was also ordered to forfeit $1,382,427 and pay $18,687,518 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
Furthermore, a Steven Kaitz is identified as Fixtech’s director of global sales in documents that accompanied the resolution.
Additionally, according to court documents, Kaitz and two other defendants “were involved in the creation of fake email accounts purporting to belong to fictitious employees of Foot Locker and Adidas, G3K’s two largest customers.”
Fixtech’s website identifies Kaitz as a consultant for sales development “with a successful track record helping brands such as Pepsi, Foot Locker, Frito Lay and Adidas to expand beyond their national footprint and establish physical presence around the globe.”
The Kaitz employed by Fixtech declined to comment and hung up when reached on his cell phone Monday evening.
