Small Town News

Road repair bids exceed estimates

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The Adams County Commissioners held an extra meeting this month because the Road and Bridge Department wanted to open the construction bids for repairing the Middle Fork Road which had been damaged in the Spring runoff. Road Supervisor Kraig Spelman wants to get the repairs to the roadway completed before winter weather hits so the road will hold up to next year's runoff.

The repair project had been estimated to cost under $100,000 and Spelman had obtained funding from two grants to cover $90,000 of that expense. Unfortunately the four construction companies who entered bids to complete the work ranged from $228,000 to $150,000, which was quite a bit above the estimated cost going into the bidding process.

Engineer Trevor Howard had drawn up the bid specifications, and had included over 250 feet of roadway that was to be rebuilt. Howard proposed that the roadway section could be shortened to reduce the expense, or the roadway could be moved to avoid the roadway cut, which would also shorten the length of roadway that needed to be rebuilt.

The bidding process allows for up to a 25% increase or decrease in the bid specs without calling for rebidding the project, but the bids received were too much above that limit to do so without requiring rebidding. Winter time weather is fast approaching, so the Commissioners decided to table the current bids until their next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, October 13, when they will again review the specs during the Road and Bridge portion of the meeting at 10:00 AM. Commissioner Mike Paradis, who was acting as Commission Chairman at this meeting due to Commissioner Bill Brown's absence, said that he would, "rather spend the money to overbuild the section of roadway and do it right the first time." Supervisor Spelman emphasized that he would be inspecting the roadwork as it progressed, but that he wanted the work to be done in 2015.

Any shortage of funding for this particular project will have to come from the Capital Funds account of the Adams County budget for 2016.

Since the meeting was only to be a brief one, the Commissioners accepted a $18,499 equipment grant from Homeland Security which will be used over the next three years, expiring in 2017. They also accepted an Emergency Management Performance grant for $18,694 which will be used to fund the part-time civil defense coordinator position through 2017.

The Sheriff's Department was approved to apply for an additional $10,000 grant, which would be used to upgrade the equipment used in the E-911 Dispatch program.

The rest of the county business will discussed at the next regular Commissioner meeting next week.



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