The City of Great Bend was ready to move forward with paving 8th Street between Grant Street and McKinley Street when they sent out for bids. Wanting to get started on the project as soon as possible to connect Walmart and Dillons to the south of The Reserves at Trail Ridge apartment complex, the City received four bids back. One bid was from Venture Corporation to asphalt the street, and the other three bids were from different companies to use concrete.
The problem that surfaced at Monday’s Great Bend City Council meeting was that the three bids for concrete did not quite meet the specifications of the bid requests.
Great Bend’s on-call engineer Josh Golka stated there was a request to have all the bidders show proof of being pre-qualified by the Kansas Department of Transportation.
Josh Golka Audio
The KDOT pre-qualification assures that the company is financially sound and has the means to perform the project. A crowd member at Monday’s meeting felt the KDOT pre-qualification was not needed since this was solely a city project. Golka added more often than not, the contractors are good to work with but the KDOT line protects the city legally.
The Venture asphalt bid came in at $468,876.95. Suchy Construction had the low bid for concrete at $462,951.61. Vogts-Parga Construction’s bid for concrete was $497,314.30 and L&M Contractors’ was $514,560.
Venture, who did not submit a concrete bid, felt that their asphalt pitch should be the only bid considered since it was the only one that followed the bid specifications.
Venture Corporation Employee Audio
The bid specifications read to submit written proof of KDOT prequalification within the bid submittal. Suchy identified proof after the bid deadline, and Vogts-Parga was identified as qualified on KDOT’s public website but did not physically submit the qualification. Golka says if the City followed the “letter of the law,” then Venture was the only company that should have appeared as an option, but mistakenly the other three were read.
Golka added that all the bids came drastically under the estimate, and because of this, the City should look at using concrete. Golka gave a shelf life of 25-30 years for asphalt roads and 40-50 years for concrete.
The City Council voted 4-3 to rebid the project to allow bidders to correctly show the KDOT approval.
In other City Council news from August 6…
– Great Bend Public Library Director Gail Santy addressed the Library’s 2019 budget. Santy says the Library has worked with city staff to avoid confusion on their budget going forward and will work an appeals process to the state to avoid losing state aid.
– City Administrator Kendal Francis says James Cell was hired as the Network Administrator, the Great Bend Police Department has hired a full staff, the waterline replacement project is roughly 70 percent complete and weather permitting should be done by late fall or early winter, and the city will launch a revamped website on August 27.
– Sanitarian Austin LaViolette presented three abatements. The Great Bend Hotel and Convention Center at 3017 10th Street was included on the list for trash and weeds. A crowd member questioned why the city does not take action on the eyesore on 10th, but City Attorney Bob Suelter again stated that is not much the city can do with the privately-owned building.
– The Council approved a second change order for the waterline project not to exceed $510,021.23.
– Suelter announced Tractor Supply plans to begin construction on a Great Bend store in October. The store will be located on Grant Street to the west of Walmart. Suelter noted some problems connecting a sewer line to the site, but the Council approved a temporary septic system to be used until a proper sewer connection is established.