By BONNIE FRIEDMAN

HOBOKEN - A principal of Metro-Ran LLC, a development company hoping to win the rights to the municipal garage site on Observer Highway, said he handed in on the day of last month's deadline his group's proposed bid for a site in Hoboken - plus nine copies of it, as requested in the bid specifications.

Presumably, the nine copies are for distribution to the nine members of the City Council.. But none of those copies made it to a City Council member's hands, according' to Fred Bado, the city's director of community development.

Instead, each council member was handed a one-page report from the city's redevelopment attorney, Gordon Litwin, that recommended they reject both bids the city received, including Metro-Ran's.

The council, by a 5-4 vote, agreed with Litwin - even though many of them had never even looked at the proposal. Those who had seen the documents, including Councilwoman Theresa Castellano, had asked' for their own copies from the developer himself.

"How do you vote on something thing without exploring it and listening to one side?" Castellano asked.

Bado initially said he didn't know why copies of the proposal weren't distributed to the City Council members. He later admitted, however, that he'd made the decision, and said the reason he didn't distribute the copies was because he was sure the city couldn't accept either bid anyway.

"I made a mistake," said Bado, who went on to say that the administration provided ,enough detail for the council to make a decision that night even' without a copy of the full proposal in hand.

Robert Ranieri Jr., one of the partners in Metro-Ran who disputes the theory that the bids Failed to meet all the specifications, called the actions by the council "wrong and undemocratic."

"I've developed 600 units of housing for (Housing and Urban Development) in Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Camden, Paterson and Trenton using' government money and government contracts and I've never seen such a witch hunt by a council," Ranieri said.

Corporation Counsel Joseph Sherman said the city did not violate any laws because bids for the garage site should be accorded the same review process as any other request for proposal. Under normal circumstances, Sherman said, the administration decides on a bid and the council votes "yes" or "no," without reviewing the proposal in full.

Councilwoman Theresa LaBruno said she felt confident voting to reject the proposal even without reading it for herself. "Even if I did see the bids, all the intricacies, I wouldn't understand," she said. "I have to defer to corporate counsel."