January 24, 2003

Appeal of

CHARLES C. WILEY

Under Contract No. HCR 24010

PSBCA No. 4959

APPEARANCE FOR APPELLANT:

Charles E. Wiley

APPEARANCE FOR RESPONDENT:

William B. Neel, Esq.

OPINION OF THE BOARD ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

            Appellant Charles C. Wiley has requested that the Board reconsider the dismissal of his appeal, which the Board dismissed on December 20, 2002, for lack of jurisdiction.  The basis for the dismissal was that the appeal was actually a protest of procurement actions taken by Respondent, which the Board had no authority to consider.  Respondent opposes Appellant’s request.

            Appellant argues that he misunderstood the results of a telephone conference held on November 25, 2002, and has included a copy of a December 13, 2002 letter

that he sent to the National Mail Transportation Manager following that conference.  Appellant states that he did not realize that he was required to send a copy of the letter to the Board.  However, the directions in the Board’s Order and Memorandum of Telephone Conference, issued after the November 25, 2002 conference, were clear and required Appellant to file with the Board any additional material that he wanted considered.  Since Appellant did not do so by the deadline established by the Order, dismissal was appropriate.

            Nevertheless, we have examined Appellant’s December 13, 2002 letter and still are of the opinion that the matters addressed are not within our jurisdiction.  Appellant continues to take issue with actions by the Postal Service in 1998 and 2002, as a result of which two routes (including one that was his) were combined and Appellant was later required to compete for the combined route.

            As before, Appellant has not alleged that the actions taken by the Postal Service constituted a breach of his contract.  Rather, it appears that Appellant is protesting the combination of the routes and/or the competition that occurred in 2002, and the subsequent award to another contractor following the expiration of his contract.  This Board has no authority to consider this matter, see, e.g., Dill’s Star Route, Inc., PSBCA No. 3699, 95-2 BCA ¶ 27,608, since protests of Postal Service procurements are considered by the Postal Service General Counsel, USPS Purchasing Manual, §3.6.

            Accordingly, Appellant’s request for reconsideration is denied, and the dismissal of the appeal is affirmed.[1]

David I. Brochstein

Administrative Judge

Vice Chairman

I concur:

James A. Cohen

Administrative Judge

Chairman

I concur:

Norman D. Menegat

Board Member

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[1]   Since we have no jurisdiction over this matter, this denial should not be read to express any opinion regarding the merits of the issues raised by Appellant’s December 13, 2002 letter.