Sec. 8. (a) After the final offers from responsible offerors have been negotiated under section 7 of this chapter, the authority shall:
(1) subject to a responsible offeror complying with subsection (b), make a preliminary selection of an offeror as the operator for the project, whose final offer is referred to in this article as the "selected offer"; or
(2) terminate the request for proposal process.
(b) Before the authority may consider an offeror for a preliminary selection, the authority must have received a certificate from the offeror that includes the information required to be considered under section 7(b)(4) and 7(d) of this chapter that is dated not more than fifteen (15) days and not fewer than ten (10) days before the date of the authority's public meeting at which the authority will make a final selection.