Forestry committee OKs contractor change on gravel bid

Rather than force a contractor to abide by a mislabeled bid amount, members of the county’s forestry committee on Friday approved rescinding the bid award and going with the adjusted low bidder.

At last month’s committee meeting, members approved awarding the bid for gravel for the county forest roads to Haas Sons of Thorp for an apparent low bid price of $29,595. At the time, it was noted that this was well below what had been budgeted for the gravel and was lower than what the adjoining town of Greenwood received for gravel bids.

According to county forest administrator Jake Walcisak, typically the county forest bids end up slightly higher than the town prices because the volume is lower and forest logging roads are narrower making access more challenging.

Following the meeting, the county learned why the price seemed so much lower, Haas submitted a bid based on tons, while the county’s bid specification called for a price per cubic yard.

“Whose fault was it?” asked committee member Gary Beadles.

Walcisak said he checked the bid from Haas and the measurement area was left blank. “The slot on the spreadsheet was open,” he said.

Walcisak said he assumed since the county specifications called for cubic yards that the bid was based on cubic yards. He noted that he could have called to verify the amount, however he noted that while it was lower it was not so far off previous amounts to raise questions.

“It wasn’t like it was half, it was a couple dollars cheaper,” Walcisak said, noting he was contacted by Haas who told him the company does all their business in tons.

Walcisak said weight measurements are becoming more common, comparing it to the timber which used to all be based on cords but now goes by tonnage.

Beadles said he felt Haas should honor their bid since the specification called for cubic yards and the contractor did not list a unit on their submission.

“I could have checked,” Walcisak said. Walcisak said he refigured the bid amounts converting from yards to tons for all the bidders and asked the committee to terminate the contract with Haas and award it to the low bidder, which was Randy Thums Trucking with a total price of $37,827.50. This is still below the $42,000 estimated for the project.

Walcisak said all the bids were within the 30-day window the county had for accepting them.

Walcisak noted that Haas was aware the county could have stuck him with the lower price. Committee chairman Scott Mildbrand said in the future they will have to look at the bids closer and noted that the county has worked with all of the bidders in the past and will likely do so in the future.

Committee members approved terminating the contract and going with Randy Thums Trucking on a vote of three in favor, Beadles opposed and committee member Rollie Thums abstaining.

Possible land purchase

Taylor County may be looking at an expansion of its county forest property. The county was approved by property owners whose 158 acres are bordered by the county forest about potentially selling their land.

The property, which is in Open Managed Forest Land (MFL) has an assessed value of $287,300 or about $1,817 per acre. In the open MFL program, forest owners receive a reduced tax rate in exchange for having the land open for some types of public use. In 2022, the taxes on the parcel totaled $322.42 or about $2.04 per acre.

According to Walcisak, if the county were to purchase the parcel, the amount of payments to the county, town and school district would actually increase due to it coming under county forest law levels versus open MFL. The parcel in question will be in MFL until 2066.

What makes the parcel attractive from the county standpoint is that it has 152 acres of productive forest. Of that 115 acres is available for selection harvest, there is 35 acres of swamp conifers and five acres of swamp hardwoods. The parcel includes about 100 acres of area that would be suitable for summer logging operations. Summer logging areas typically are a higher interest for contractors bidding on projects. If the purchase is approved, it would be eligible for Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Funds which would reimburse the county for half the purchase cost with the remainder to come from the forest department’s land acquisition fund. Money in that fund is generated from a percentage of the stumpage revenue in the forest.

Prior to discussion on the potential to purchase the property, Thums voiced his opposition to it saying that in good conscience he could not support buying more land when there is a committee at work looking on ways to cut $500,000 from the budget.

“It is the wrong message to send to our public and people,” he said.

There was also some discussion on if the committee’s consideration of the parcel should be done in open session or if it should be done in closed session for bargaining reasons.

Beadles noted that talking about it in open session would make the committee’s actions more transparent.

“It is best to stay in open session as much as possible,” Walcisak said, agreeing with Beadles. He suggested presenting the basic information in open session and then going into closed session to discuss the potential price.

Under the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program, the property must be assessed and the program will only pay for 50% of that assessed value. It would also require a vote of the full county board in order to qualify for funding.

Following the presentation, committee members went into closed session to talk about the potential price tag. Coming out of closed session, the committee voted to direct Walcisak to negotiate with the property owners to get the best price possible for the county. Thums voted against pursuing the purchase.

According to Walcisak, the property has the potential for sales almost immediately and has access through the county forest properties.

Any purchase agreement will come back to the committee and then to the full county board before it will be finalized.

In other business, committee members:

  Reviewed and approved the bills and vouchers for payment. Thums questioned the purchase of tires for the newly purchased truck for the department. “It bothers me that we bought a forest truck with new tires,” Thums said, noting they then went out and bought different tires. Walcisak explained that the truck was purchased under the state Department of Administration specifications while they needed the off road tires for going to job sites in the county forest. He said the county saved about $7,000 in going with the state contract price and that the tires that came with the truck were then used to replace worn tires on another pickup in other departments in the county.

  Received an update on a logging sale project the county is working with UW-Stevens Point Students to get real world experience in establishing a sale. “I was very pleased with all the interactions,” Walcisak said of the day-long event on April 29 which brought 21 students as well as educators and logging professionals to the county forest.

  Received an update that a migrant planting crew spent about two hours planting 10,500 red pine trees as part of a pine plantation project. “It is impressive,” said assistant forest administrator Jordan Lutz. In way of comparison, Lutz said it took him about 5 hours to plant 550 trees. “My body paid for it the next day,” he said.

  Discussed ways to involve local sportsman groups in improving habitat at Camp 8 during the dam reconstruction project that is scheduled to take place this summer.

  Discussed the potential of developing a shooting range on the forest in the Rib Lake area. Walcisak said it would depend on a suitable location being found and said the key is boundary management to prevent people from accidentally wandering into the shooting area. He said this can be done with berms such as at the county shooting range on Pirus Ave. or with fences or signs every 100 feet around the area.