Finance committee approves four contracting actions including Cheyenne River benching and roadway work packages

The Diversion Authority Finance Committee on May 27 approved four contracting actions: a year-long C3 Media video-services contract and three construction awards tied to diversion-area infrastructure.

John Bakugard reviewed four items and recommended awarding the Cheyenne River benching project to Minnesota Native Landscaping after receiving seven bids that were well below the original engineer estimate. "We got seven bids…ranged from about 1.9 million up to a little over 4 million; our estimate was 6.8 million," Bakugard said, and recommended the low bidder based on their river-work experience. The recommended award amount was stated in the discussion as $1,865,762 (transcript numeric formatting contains noise).

Bakugard also recommended awarding work package 52K (mobility/gravel improvements in partnership with Mapleton Township along 52nd Avenue to County Road 15) to Border States Paving; two bids were received and were about 2–2.5% over estimate. He recommended award of work package 52L (Waricki Avenue, an agreement with Harwood Township to reconnect road segments) to RJ Zavverall & Sons; bids on 52L were roughly 25% over estimate, primarily driven by a Cass County request to reduce the width of remnant County Road 4 segments and by higher gravel pricing.

The committee voted to approve items 7A–D together. Don called the roll; members recorded as voting in favor included Mayor Dardis, Mayor Carlson, Mr. Stein, Miss Thompson, Mr. Winger, Mr. Pepcorn, Mr. Capitan and Mr. Reese. Bakugard stood for questions after the presentation but the committee moved to a single combined vote with no further debate.

The committee recorded the contract awards and directed staff to proceed with standard contracting steps for execution and payment.