Oahu residents will have to fend off wild chickens on their own and gripe directly to police about noisy roosters because of a cost-cutting measure by the Caldwell administration.

In a move to reduce spending, Managing Director Ember Shinn decided in late August or early September to not award an $80,000 contract for crowing rooster and feral chicken control services, city Customer Services Director Sheri Kajiwara told the City Council Budget Committee on Wednesday.

Controlling crowing roosters and feral chickens is not a core function of the city, Kajiwara said.

The contract with Kaneohe-based Animal Haven expired on Sept. 30.

The Department of Budget and Fiscal Services, apparently unaware of Shinn’s decision, continued with the procurement process, receiving four bids by mid-September and even declaring Animal Haven as the low bidder when bids were opened on Sept. 17.

Budget Committee members were surprised and disappointed about the decision.

Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi said noisy roosters have been of particular concern, affecting the health of those who cannot sleep.

"I can’t believe they’re not going to fund $80,000," Kobayashi told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser after the meeting. "There’s a big problem all over the island with roosters."

Kobayashi said police patrol officers are too busy to deal with rooster complaints and noted that they recently were also made responsible for responding to barking dog complaints as a result of a change in the contract with the Hawaiian Humane Society.

Councilman Stanley Chang said crowing roosters account for a significant share of the complaints Council members receive from across the island.

"Disproportionately, we get more complaints on that than (with) virtually any other issue," he said.

Chang said Council members were not provided with much detail about the situation and that he will press for more. "We definitely want to make sure this issue is addressed."

Randy Leong, a Department of Customer Services executive assistant, said Animal Haven reported trapping 232 chickens in the 12 months before Sept. 30.

Frank DeGiacomo, Animal Haven president, contends the city chose not award the contract because he had the lowest bid and would have been awarded the contract again.

"Because the bid did not go to the people the city wanted the bid to go to, the city canceled the contract," he said.

An animal rights advocate whose "no kill" philosophy has long put him at odds with the Hawaiian Humane Society, DeGiacomo said the city had the option of renewing his one-year contract without going through open bidding but instead chose to go through an entirely new procurement process. The new solicitation for bids then included several changes DeGiacomo said he thinks were put in purposely to make bidding difficult for him.

"I think the thing speaks for itself," he said.

Among the changes in the bid language was a provision that the bidder had to purchase a certain type of trap from a specific vendor, and stiffer reporting requirements, DeGiacomo said.

DeGiacomo and other bidders were notified by city Purchasing Administrator Wendy Imamura that the bidding process was being canceled "due to budget constraints" on Sept. 25. Even though the city had set aside $80,000 for the contract, DeGiacomo said he bid $59,000 — $21,000 less than the second lowest bidder.

"It really doesn’t make sense to kill a $60,000 program that had a fair number of call volume and fair number of things resolved to take the load off of HPD, which is a much more expensive operation," he said.

City officials denied DeGiacomo’s assertion, insisting that the city had made the decision before the bids were opened.

But they acknowledged that bid specifications were changed to deal with some issues that had been raised.

Leong said there were concerns that the traps DeGiacomo had been issuing to people seeking to capture feral chickens were not appropriate. They appeared to be homemade using chicken wire, he said.

"Part of the new contract that we put out included a specification for a trap that met certain criteria," he said.

Kobayashi said she had heard complaints about Animal Haven’s handling of its contract.

"Maybe the reason the program wasn’t working was because we didn’t have the right contractor," she said. "But now that no one is doing it, the problem is just going to get worse."