After receiving bids that were much higher than expected for paving projects around the city, the Columbia Board of Aldermen and Mayor Justin McKenzie are seeking solutions for crumbling infrastructure.
During last Tuesday’s Board meeting, Engineer Sean Burns spoke about a recent bid opening to repair several streets.
“I was very disappointed,” he said. “I told you before that the numbers may not meet the estimate. But they were terribly, terribly off. My estimate for the base bid was $147,000 and the lowest bid, we received two bids, and the base bid was $352,000. It was more than twice as much. I think some of it is that the work that has to be done is so time consuming. I looked at previous bid prices for these type of items and I knew it would be more, but I didn’t realize that it would be this much more. Some of it may be the cost of the asphalt. With some, their workload might be a part of it. I was surprised and very disappointed and almost embarrassed with it. Most of the time, they are within 10 percent and this was well out of that range. At this time, I’m almost positive that you won’t want to move forward with this.”
Burns said if the Board wanted to continue, he could contact the lower bidder.
“The base bid was $352,000 and I know you wanted to stay around $140,000,” Burns said.”
McKenzie said he was concerned at the costs involved.
“I think with those two bids, we need to back up and regroup,” he said.
City Attorney Lawrence Hahn said that the city could revisit the process by rejecting the bids.
Ward 4 Alderman Mike Smith made a motion to reject the bids and Alderman-at-Large Edward Hough seconded it. The Board voted unanimously to reject the bids.
“I will definitely be contacting the mayor soon to sit down and talk about some of the ideas that I have on this,” Burns said. “We can discuss options and bring them to a future meeting.”
Hough said several places needed repairs immediately.
“Are we going to try and fix some of those spots in-house?” he asked. “I think everybody’s aware of the bad area on Church Street. It’s turning into a hole.”
McKenzie said city crews would work on spot patching, but heavier paving would need to be in the bids.
“The area on Church across from the school is bad,” McKenzie said. “Sean said he had an idea of how to respond to this. We will have to determine if we accept another bid or re-bid this on a smaller scale. We could do it in increments. We’re going to review some stuff. We’re going to make sure we do it the right way.”
McKenzie added that city crews had used two pallets of spot patch since July 1.
“We’re trying our best to fill up the small holes,” he said. “We want to prevent future erosion. We also have some drainage issues that we will have to discuss. We will identify a few spots and figure out a way to do this.”
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Columbia Board of Aldermen is set for 4 p.m. on Nov. 7 at City Hall.
