Washington City awards sewer and road-maintenance contracts; packet and spoken motion contain inconsistent bid figures

The Washington City Council approved two public-works contract awards at its Jan. 28 meeting: a sewer-line contract for Merrill Road and 20 East and the annual slurry-seal (micro-surface) road-maintenance contract.

Sewer contract: Public works director Blake Fons Beck presented the Merrill Road and 20 East sewer-line project as the final phase of a multi-year effort and said the city received 10 bids. Staff presentation listed Phase Concrete (or a similarly named firm in the packet) as the recommended bidder with a contract value presented in staff materials as $2,242,444.97. Councilman Coates moved to award the contract and Councilman Lisonbee seconded; the motion passed unanimously by voice vote. The oral motion as recorded in the transcript included a different numeric string ($2,242,444,100), which appears to be a verbal or transcription error; staff follow-up is required to confirm the final contract amount before executing documents.

Slurry-seal contract: The council also approved the city's annual slurry/micro-surface maintenance contract. Andy Stevens, contractor representative, explained a clerical bid-unit omission that increased the micro-surface unit price from $1.72 to $2.40; even with that adjustment American Pavement Preservation remained the low bidder. Packet materials and the staff recommendation show a project amount of $748,719.74. Councilman Ivy moved to award the contract and Councilwoman Caspersen seconded; council approved unanimously by voice vote. The transcript records several inconsistent motion figures and small discrepancies during the spoken motion; staff will confirm the final executed contract total and the adjusted unit pricing.

Why it matters: These are capital and maintenance expenditures that move forward road and sewer improvements in Washington City. The slurry-seal contract covers hundreds of thousands of square yards of micro-surfacing; the sewer contract is a multi-million-dollar construction project that will complete a parallel sewer line and related pavement and storm-drain work.

Follow-up: Public Works was instructed to finalize contract documents, confirm unit-price adjustments and clerical bid confirmations with the awarded vendors, and return executed contracts for administrative processing. The council recorded the awards by voice votes and did not take a roll-call tally for these items.

Representative quotes: "We had 10 bids...we had really a lot of interest in this," Public Works director Blake Fons Beck said of the sewer-line project. "There was a clerical issue with the bids and we allowed American to adjust their unit cost on just the micro surface...they still were the low bid with the added cost," contractor Andy Stevens said of the slurry-seal item.

Ending: Both contract awards were approved on Jan. 28; Public Works will confirm final dollar amounts and return executed contracts to the appropriate administrative offices for processing.