This is in reply to your letter of 26, July 1977; and your total rejection. witnout comment of our transmittal #13. Faragraph 3-4.3 WITNESS TESIS Fage TF3-3 states in part*****Should the witness test reveal that the model does not perform in accordance with the requirements of the specification and the specified values, the Contractor shall make such. changes as are required to make it acceptable before again notifying the Contracting Officer that the witness tests are ready to be run.***** Tais is, in fact, what we have done. We therfore, request clarification of your rejection. 1. 2. Are you refusing to witness the test we have prepared? If there is a flat out refusal, what is your justification, The following comments are directed to specific paragraphs of your letter of 26 July 1977 which I have mumbered 1 through 6. Paragraph #2. We must take exception to the definition of stability and the subsequent application of said definition for the following reasons. 1. The definition is a unique and personal definition created by 2. If his definition was valid, its application to the factory test SCAPPOOSE DRAINAGE DISTRICT BA Faragraph #2. We do waci. to pursue the testing further. It is our contention that the witness test, called for in our transmittal #13, constitutes the rerun of the factory test. As stated in the transmittal, it is our contention that the Aurora portion of the factory test is basic and that the burden is on us to prove the performance in our test stand with the specified submergence. We welcome your brangang hr. Jaok. Robertson in for the test. Faragraph #4. We respectfully suggest that, had my letter of June 3rd and Transmittal #13 been more thoroughly reviewed, this paragraph would not have been written; as we have conceded that the Velocity Head Loss will be computed at the pressure tapping. The preliminary data submitted to your office in Transmittal #13 waɛ, in fact, done that way. Fara rapi. #. We are not asking for a waiver of our requirements to "successfully meet the requirement of the factory test. We are asking that you attend the test as requested in our Transmittal #13. Paragraph #. we particularly appreciate your use of the word "amicably." An "amicable" relationship, as we understand it, is one that is characterized by friendship and good will. We assure you that this is our intention. stands now, you nave: As it Rejected the pumps prior to your transmitting test data to you. This seems less than "amicable" to us. Me, therefore, request that you reconsider your rejection of our Transmittal #13, and alio:: us to demonstrate the pump to kr. Jack Robertson. If we cannot prove the pump ar. our test rack with the modifications we have made, then the disapproval will be justified. We are prepared to conduct the test at your con ITE. # 9 List of specification requirements insisted on by hr. Jack Robertson that put the specification at, odds with the Industry. 6 - 90% of Full load on motors anywhere on the curve. Stability throughout entire operating range of pump. Abstruse and ambiguous specification in view of time and monev spent on design memos. Re Contracts # DACW57-75-0-0125 #DACW57-75-C-0265 # DACW57-75-C-0195 Senator PACKWOOD. Bob Heestand, president of Nehalem Valley Motor Freight. STATEMENT OF ROBERT P. HEESTAND, PRESIDENT, NEHALEM VALLEY MOTOR FREIGHT, INC., PORTLAND, OREG. Mr. HEESTAND. Thank you, Senator. I am a small businessman. I have a small trucking firm, but I employ between 50 and 60 people spread out in three terminals, so each of them operate independently, so we have very few of them. I am certainly glad that the television cameras have gone, because I have already been on television once this week with a truck upside down. Senator PACKWOOD. Was that your truck? Mr. HEESTAND. One of them, unfortunately. Thank you for allowing me to testify today. I support anything you can do to get the Government to pay their bills more promptly. The strongest point I can make is attached to my statement, a copy of the fee schedule for Transport Clearings who is the collections arm for a large segment of the industry. As you can see, we must pay 50 percent more for collecting Government bills than commercial or regular customer bills due to the length of time we must pay interest to a bank in order to finance these Government bills, and the extra paperwork in that regard of sending past due notices, et cetera. Now, I also have to say that the Government has eased our problems by the initiation of new forms of GBL's-Government bills of ladingabout 3 years ago. It has cut down the presentation of the bills by probably 60 days. Now our problem is, plain and simply, getting the bills paid through the Government agency. Senator PACKWOOD. Let me ask you, just to make sure I understand. Mr. HEESTAND. Yes. Senator PACKWOOD. Transport Clearings charges 25 cents per bill for a commercial bill and 40 cents for a Government bill per bill? Mr. HEESTAND. That's correct, right. Senator PACKWOOD. Simply because of the frustration of trying to collect the money from the Government? Mr. HEESTAND. That's correct, plus the fee per dollar, which is a percentage of the revenue dollar, which is also 50 percent higher. Senator PACKWOOD. Right. Mr. HEESTAND. So that your interest fee will come in and help speed that up, and I think probably in our case it will. We don't have the great choice of saying whether we're going to do business with the Government or not do business with the Government, because we are a regulated common carrier with the obligation to perform that duty. Most any community has a post office or Astoria has a Coast Guard station, or what-have-you, but there are some things that we could go after. Our firm, with other small firms, will not go after section 22, exempt business, from the Government just for that reason. Now, I sat here and I listened to many, many horror stories this morning and I wouldn't try to add to that, but I would like to discuss a couple of ramifications out of the horror stories that possibly you haven't thought of in the past. They are, lack of communications and averaging. Please let me explain. Myself and thousands of other small carriers have become completely frustrated at the rhetoric of Government helping the small businessman and its actions taking the exact opposite tack. In trying to cure some excesses in the past, and particularly conflict of interest, we are losing our sense of perspective. We are forcing apart Government and the people it represents to such an arm's length basis by actions of ethics commissions and agency rules that dialog has almost ceased. My marriage is going to fail if Ann and I keep trying to kiss when we are 6 feet apart. The biggest single problem we have is in having people in Government working with us who are not informed about not only our company, but any small truckline or any other small business for that matter. Let me give you an example. At one time I started a program of inviting regulatory people to our company. They would arrive at the terminal at 8 a.m. and spend the first part of the day in the dispatch office watching how we dispatch deliveries that had come in during the night. Later they went into the shop to see what the mechanics were doing and what their problems were. They then spent an hour with our claims and customer serviceman, an hour with the office people on the handling of paperwork, then back to the dispatch office to watch the problems of myriads of phone calls and dispatching problems in picking up the freight, then a period with the rate department to see how freight bills are rated and billed. I purposely did not have coffee with them or take them to lunch. Everyone who participated thanked us profusely because they had grasped a sense of what made the wheels go round and helped them when they were judging and making decisions for the entire industry. This practice was stopped by the commissions to avoid "conflict-of-interest charges." Now we get regulations in a vacuum because people sit behind desks and have no knowledge of what they are doing. Common Cause, I understand, has charged this week that Government agencies talk to industry 10 times more often than to consumer groups. I say this is like saying that a ladies dress shop is wrong because they serve 10 times as many lady customers as they do men customers. I say that is their job, the regulatory people, and that it is not improper. We find that agencies do represent in each one of those conversations the consumer points of view in any conversations. I'm connected with and work very hard not only with our local State associations, but with the national groups, and I just returned from Tennessee where I attended a National Short Haul Carriers board meeting. We as a group asked for an oral hearing with the ICC such as this, to sit down and tell the story about what was maybe going to happen to 10,000 companies and we were denied that opportunity. We sent them pieces of paper and they sent back pieces of paper and we sent them pieces of paper. And, as you well know, it's pretty hard to, unless you can pick a point that you don't understand, ask a clarification question to really grasp everything that is needed. Now, today, after MC-37 commercial zone expansion and the damage is done, or not done, depending upon your point of view (I am not arguing the case of whether the regulation was right or wrong), but now the Commission is going to go out and institute full-scale investigations into the short-haul carriers' problem. So the horse is out of the barn and now we are closing the door. Another place where small companies are getting killed off is in averaging. Now, I heard today a lot of people testifying before you, and this is exactly the kind of thing that I am talking about, and that is, uniformity. There's nothing wrong with uniformity, but I make this plea to you. 96-385 77 10 |