Colby gets engineering bids for road work
Engineering proposals for two major street projects were presented to Colby’s public works committee Tuesday, but the wide range in prices had city officials wondering if the firms were all following the same specs.
The committee eventually voted to recommend approval of the low bids submitted by MSA Professional Services, pending a review of the company’s proposals by Mayor Jim Schmidt and DPW Harland Higley to make sure they matched what the city was looking for.
The proposals were for designing a northward extension of Community Drive and for reconstructing North Second Street. MSA’s total proposed cost was $88,000, which includes $58,000 for Second Street and $30,000 for Community Drive.
The next lowest bids were from Ayres Associates at $101,300, which is a difference of $13,300. A third set of bids, from Cedar Corporation, totaled $156,900 — $68,900 more than MSA’s.
Higley suggested that he and the mayor sit down with all three companies to discuss why the prices were so different, but the committee wanted to proceed with making a recommendation first.
The city’s request for proposals (RFPs) should have been specific enough for the firms to follow, Higley said, but he’s wondering if one of them missed something or included an add-on to their proposal.
“I guess I kind of want to know on my end why there was such a variance in prices,” he said.
Ald. Todd Schmidt, however, said Higley should already checked the bids to make sure they matched the city’s RFPs.
“You should have gone through these bids to make sure they complied with the bid specs, and if everyone complies, I don’t see why you need to do a follow-up to confirm the price, unless I’m missing something,” he said.
The city’s RFPs stated that the city council will award a contract in March, so Higley said there’s still another month to review all the bids.
Ald. Tammy Solberg said she did not have a problem with Higley following up with the competing firms.
“I don’t think it hurts if you reach out, since we have the time, and check and see why there is such a huge difference,” she said. “It’s not going to hurt anything to ask.”
Ald. Dan Hederer said he didn’t see any reason why the city shouldn’t just accept MSA’s bids as long as they aren’t missing anything.
MSA engineer Mike Voss, who serves as the city’s regular engineer, attended a regular council meeting also held Tuesday night. He said his firm was looking for work later this year after some of its other projects got pushed back, which could explain why their prices were so much lower than the ones submitted by the other two companies.
“I don’t think we missed anything, but we can talk about that whenever you want to,” he told city officials.
_ The council approved the purchase of a plow/dump truck with a stainless steel box, at cost of $124,488 from Mid-State Trucking.
_ City clerk Connie Gurtner told the council that deputy clerk Jessie Polivka was supposed to have received a raise of $2.25 per hour for attaining her clerk’s certification last fall. The raise was only $2, so she just got another 25-cent bump, plus about $300 in back pay.
_ Mayor Schmidt said all the paperwork has been completed to create the city’s TIF district number 3.
