Stevensville council opens bids for airport fuel station; second bid flagged for paperwork omission, council sends both to airport board

The Stevensville Town Council opened and reviewed two bids for a proposed self-service fuel station at the Stevensville Airport and directed staff to forward both proposals to the airport board for further review.

Town staff announced bids from Granite Petroleum Inc. of Spokane, Washington, and Energy Systems LLC of Billings, Montana. Granite Petroleum's bid was read at $590,868; staff deemed that submission responsive to the bid checklist. Energy Systems' submission listed numeric dollar amounts but did not include the written amounts in words on the form, which staff said may make it nonresponsive under the packet's instructions.

Town staff stated the engineer's estimate was $464,300, making Granite Petroleum's apparent low responsive bid roughly $126,568 above that estimate. Staff noted the packet required prices in both words and figures to guard against ambiguity.

A motion to award the contract to Granite Petroleum was made on the floor but council members raised concerns about the grant breakdown and whether the Montana Aeronautics and FAA grants would cover the higher amount. Council member Brown asked how any overage would affect the airport budget; staff said that depending on the shortfall, the airport's out-of-pocket share could be about 5% of the amount over grant funds.

Rather than make a final award, the council voted to have the airport board review both bids, the checklist and grant breakdowns and return a recommendation to the council. The council approved the motion to forward the bids to the airport board 3-0.

Council members recorded votes as "Aye" from Barker, Brown and Smith. Town staff indicated that until the airport board completes its review, the council will not take a final award action.