UPDATE: Kraft Group says no negotiations taking place with town – Foxboro Reporter

For the second time, the board of water and sewer commissioners received no bids for the right to manage advertising on two billboards and a water tank on Route 1. Bids were due Monday.

Fnance director Randy Scollins said this week that the town and the Kraft Group are working to negotiate an extension of the agreement under which Kraft has managed the ads on the billboards in a revenue sharing agreement with the town. That agreement expired on May 14, he said.

However, a spokesman for the Kraft Group said Wednesday evening (after The Foxboro Reporter press deadline) that there were no negotiations taking place.

“As we have said many times, we believe that the billboard bid process, led by the town manager, was flawed. There have now been two bid efforts that have failed to generate a single bid,” Kraft Group spokesman Jeff Cournoyer said in an email. “Currently, there are no formal negotiations taking place between The Kraft Group and the town, but as a courtesy, so that Foxborough would not lose the cash flow that the billboards have generated over the last three years, we have continued to honor the prior agreement on a month-to-month-basis.

“As we have stated for well over a year, we are willing to extend the agreement, which to date has generated over $ 400,000 for the town of Foxborough. If the town wanted to open formal negotiations on a longer term deal, we would be open to that if they are conducted in a respectful manner.”

Town counsel Paul DeRensis and his associate Rod Hoffman would represent the town in contract extension talks with the Kraft Group, Scollins said.

The water board’s original bid specifications set a minimum amount of revenue the town was to be guaranteed from advertising on the two, two-sided billboards and the town-owned water tank on Route 1. After no bids were received in the first round, the board eliminated the lump sum minimum the town must receive, still with no success in finding a bidder.

For months, the matter was complicated by high-profile disagreements between town and Kraft Group officials over the complicated history of the billboards, notably focused on questions about the ownership and access to the billboard land and structures.