List,
It seems as though we have two conflicting situations being mentioned on the
List. In one case, there is a link to an article that seems to say that the
Government is going to become even more involved in on-line auctions and
purchases. Makes one think that the DRMO situation is actually going to
improve. On the other hand, we have List members talking about letters that
purport to say that DRMO auctions are a thing of the past, and only useless
scrap will be sold in the future.
I called the Battle Creek, MI Customer Support Center and asked if DRMO was
going to be halting auction sales in October, as had been mentioned in one
of the postings. The person that I spoke to was surprised to hear this, and
checked with a co-worker. Neither of these people believed that this was
true. They had received no notification that DRMO auctions would be ceasing,
at any time in the future. I specifically asked if that meant that the
public would still be able to buy surplus vehicles through the DRMO auction
process, and they said yes.
While it is possible that these employees are so low on the food chain that
nobody has bothered to tell them that the auctions are ceasing in October,
you would think that the people whose job it is to answer questions from the
public at the Customer Support Center would have been given this bit of
information. Is it possible that the left hand of the Defense Logistics
Agency doesn't know what the right hand is doing? Of course it is. You would
think that something as significant as calling a halt to all meaningful
auctions would be a serious topic of discussion around all of the water
coolers at DLA. Rumors should be flying around the offices.
There ought to be something about it on the DLA website, so I checked. There
is a news release that indicates that the DLA has entered into an agreement
to allow a civilian group to auction surplus property on the internet. That
agreement has been in place for a month, or so. The news release does say
that the civilian contractor will be handling vehicles, among many other
things. I checked the auction website, but none of the items listed, except
for some utility trailers and forklifts, could be classified as vehicles. On
the other hand, I checked the DRMO website and couldn't find any vehicles
listed for sale any later than 11 September. Either it is a coincidence that
no DRMO auctions are planned for October, at this time, or the letters that
were referred to in earlier postings are true. Does anybody have any ideas
on how to get to the truth of the matter?
John
John Hutterer
Sen. Eng. Lab. Tech.
SIMS Deltec
651-628-7107
john.hutterer@deltec.com
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