Despite a late protest from a nationwide competitor, the city of Coeur d’Alene agreed Tuesday night to continue its relationship with Diamond Parking.

“We spun around within 24 hours after the decision was reached and worked with Diamond,” city administrator Troy Tymesen said. “You have a contract that was actually multiple contracts boiled down. That dealt with moorage, boat launch, parking garages, onstreet parking, library lot was in there. We were basically chiseling away 35 pages down to this packet.”

After opting out of the Diamond contract in August, City Hall sent out requests for proposals to external parking vendors. The new contract dictates Diamond Parking will manage the city parking lots, the McEuen Parking Facility, the Coeur d’Alene Avenue Parking Garage, the mooring docks, the Third Street Boat Launch and on-street parking in the downtown core, as well as Rosenberry Drive, and Hubbard Avenue.

Diamond will work with the city to design and post new signage to provide better information and direction to the public, according to Tymesen’s finance report to the City Council.

Diamond will guarantee the city $90,000 per year on top of 94 percent of annual net fees collected in excess of $188,000 — more than twice the previous contract’s floor. Furthermore, Diamond will also manage the new annual permits for city and county residents.

Republic Parking, a subsidiary of Reef, formally protested the decision, saying Republic staff was not presented with all the relevant facts.

“One of the things I want to point out,” Republic vice president John Meek said, “that was most prominent is that in the Request For Proposal itself it did not mention the city of Coeur d’Alene used a mobile license plate recognition system to do its patrolling on-street and off. For us to prepare … a budget for this RFP, it was assumed all patrolling on-street and off was done on foot. We did not have enough time to prepare for a mobile LPR, so we assumed that. Mobile LPR is a dramatic change in the cost of labor. It can reduce labor by 75 percent.”

Meek added that the city’s need for an office was a request Republic heeded, while Diamond’s proposal mentioned no office.

“For us, that’s a $36,000 investment we put into our budget to perform the duties outlined in the RFP,” Meek said.

Tymesen said oversight was clerical, not physical.

Despite Meek’s pleas, however, the City Council approved the Diamond deal, which begins Jan. 1 and runs through the end of 2022.

“If I had a do-over for Republic,” Tymesen lamented, “it would be, ‘Make a phone call.’”

“Republic’s proposal was extremely professional,” council member Kiki Miller said. “It scored very high … I appreciate their enthusiasm in coming to the [City Council meeting] to protest and bring up these good points. I hope they’ll look to us in the future.”