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Kenyon schedules assessment hearings for street project; contractor voices bid protest
Summary
The Kenyon City Council approved Resolution 2025-12 to send notices and schedule assessment hearings for a 2025 street and sewer improvement project, adopting a 32% surface-cost assessment rate and a 15-year, 5.25% assessment term. A local contractor raised concerns about bid interpretation and said he had consulted an attorney.
The Kenyon City Council on April 8 approved Resolution 2025-12 to begin the formal assessment notice and hearing process for a planned 2025 street and sanitary sewer improvement project.
Engineer Derek told the council the city had updated estimates and recommended the parameters that will appear on property-owner notices: a 15-year assessment term, a proposed assessment interest rate of about 5.25% (the city's bond rate plus 1%), and a 32% surface-cost assessment rate to be used for initial calculations. Derek said the 32% rate matches the approach used on the prior Redwing Avenue project and that most individual assessments went down roughly 10% with updated bid pricing. He also recommended including all alternates in the initial notices and allowing property owners the option to make partial prepayments prior to the assessments appearing on tax rolls.
"The 15 years is what we used for the Redwing Avenue projects," Derek said when describing the recommended term and that the interest rate reflects the city's typical practice of adding 1 percentage point to the bond rate.
After the resolution passed, a local contractor who bid on the project, identifying himself as the owner of Icon LC, addressed the council and expressed concern about how staff had interpreted certain low-line bid items. He said his firm included nominal ("penny") entries on competitive bid line items as a strategy and that an engineer's scenario analysis had been cited as a reason to question awarding to the low bidder. "I've already contacted my attorney," the contractor said, adding he expected to be notified before the final award at next month's meeting.
Council members and staff said award of the construction contract will occur after the assessment hearing and that the tabulations and a formal award recommendation will be provided at that time. Derek said easement negotiations are still in progress and that the city plans a more relaxed public information meeting on May 7 to walk residents through assessments and alternates.
Next steps: council staff will send assessment notices reflecting the items discussed, hold the information meeting on May 7, and conduct the formal assessment hearing at the next council meeting as scheduled. The final contract award is expected to follow the assessment process.
