The AVID chip Deal

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Chick did not get very deeply into the Avid chip deal; there is more there than meets the eye.

Two years ago, two vendors were competing for access to the animal database that would be provided by the Avid chips. If the department distributes 20,000 chips a year and AVID has that data, or shares it, they can sell that data to anyone who wants to know where pet owners are and the type of animal housed. Since PetSmart was in on the deal, you can see how profitable that information would be: a mailing list of 20,000 new pet owners each year.

The two vendors were Chameleon Beach (HLP, Inc.), which supplies the department with its tracking software of the same name, and Pet-Ark, run by David Loftus, former director of Michelson's Found Animal Friends.

Recently Pet-Ark lost a copyright infringement lawsuit by Chameleon software, but also Loftus followed up on a two year offer to County to supply them 2,000,000 microchips for free. You may remember I posted this a month or so ago after seeing Marcia's Mayeda's budget summary where she claimed this as one of the department's major accomplishments for the year.

Pet Ark possibly has a deal with the County and AVID so that Pet-Ark gets the AVID data and runs their shelter kiosks--I don't know. This is speculation.

Therefore, for Boks to say there was only one competitor for the Avid service does not reflect his close, prior relationship with Chameleon's owner, and his antagonistic relationship with David Loftus who gave County the free chips.

I don't know how much Animal Services paid AVID, or whomever distributed them to AS, but it was probably more than nothing, which is the deal County got.

I can speculate that Loftus would have supplied the department with free or low cost chips, but that would have interfered with Boks' prior relationship with Chameleon Beach and Pet Harbor, who probably owns the kiosks in the various shelters. This is the prize that HLP and Loftus were both seeking from LAAS.

See the link below to HLP, Chameleon Beach products, kiosks, services such as Pet Harbor, etc.

http://www.chameleonbeach.com/ProductsandServices/tabid/63/Default.aspx

I do note that the money received for the sale of the microchips to the public is $91,000. There is more here than meets the eye, but none of it illegal? Probably Loftus did not submit a proposal to Boks' alleged RFP (Request for Proposal), but that would be because he knew he did not have a chance.

I'll bet though, there was never an advertised RFP.
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