MARTIN COUNTY — If you’re looking to outfit your office, you can do it for bargain-basement prices at the first Martin County Surplus Items E-Auction, running now through July 20.

A variety of desk chairs, file cabinets, computer monitors, and printers are among the 75 items for sale at www.lonestaronline.com. Bids start at $5.

This is the first time the county government has hosted an online auction, according to Martin County procurement specialist Helen Fisher. In the past, Karlin Daniel & Associates hosted a yearly auction of the county’s declared surplus items, but now county officials plan to host multiple online auctions at more frequent intervals.

“This was initiated when we were discussing the shortfall in the budget and possible ways we could generate revenue,” Fisher said. “We thought we could generate more revenue if we did it in smaller increments. But this is a trial. We don’t know how much we’ll make.”

To view descriptions of the auction items, see how many people have bid on them, send descriptions of items to friends, or place bids, visit www.lonestaronline.com, then click on “Martin County, FL” on the site’s left-hand side. To bid on an item, you must register with the site by creating a user name and password. Account activation can take up to one day. You can also ask the county questions about the items by clicking “Ask the seller a question.”

Winning bidders will receive an emailed invoice approximately 1 hour after the last lot from that auction closes.

Martin County Surplus Items E-Auction

On the Web: www.lonestaronline.com

Items of interest: Flat-screen monitors, PC/monitor combo, fax machines, color printers, executive chairs

Prices: Bids start at $5 for most items; there is no maximum price

How to bid: Click “Bid Now!” on the item’s homepage (after registering a user name and password with the site)

For more information: Call Garry Gierlicz at (772) 221-1320

By Shawna Gallagher Vega

Tags: auction, budget, computer, computers, desk, government, informant, name, prices, printer, sale, sales, trial, web

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 10:53 am and is filed under Economy, Martin County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.