Jacksonville Beach council approves bid awards for distribution transformers

Jacksonville Beach's City Council voted unanimously to award a pair of bids for distribution transformers, council members said Sept. 2. The council authorized awards to Westco for ABB transformers and to WEG for certain WEG units and approved delegating authority to the mayor and city manager to negotiate and execute resulting contracts. Matthew Seeley, electrical engineering project supervisor with Beaches Energy Services, told the council the awards cover only the items those two distributors bid: “these are the only 2 distributors suppliers that actually bid transformers on our prior approved list.” He said the utility will rebid items 1 through 11, which are primarily overhead distribution transformers, and that item 29 was unique to the system and received only an ABB bid. The rebid of items 1 through 11 was described as deliberate; Seeley told the council the utility has a surplus of overhead transformers and that the rebid will not leave the system short-handed. Council member Horn asked for clarification on the list of items to be rebid and on item 29; Seeley answered that 1 through 11 are the overhead units and that Weg did not offer a price on the unique item 29, leaving ABB as the sole bidder for that unit. Council member Janssen made the motion to award the bid; Horn seconded. The council recorded unanimous yes votes and later voted unanimously to authorize the mayor and city manager to execute the related contracts. The awards and contract authority are intended to move the purchase and procurement forward while the utility rebids the remaining overhead transformer items.