Selectmen award cooperative-purchase contracts for guardrails, line striping and catch-basin cleaning

The Board of Selectmen approved cooperative purchasing agreements that will let the town contract with selected vendors for guardrail replacement, line striping and catch-basin cleaning.

What was approved: The board voted to use Atlas Fence for guardrails under DAS bid 24PSX0104 (contract through Oct. 31, 2027); a CROG cooperative bid (784) for safety markings/line striping (expires Dec. 31, 2026); and a CROG bid (786) for catch-basin and pipe cleaning (American Pipe / CB Clean, contract through Dec. 31, 2027). The director of public works explained the recommendation is unit-price based (for example, about $33 per foot for a standard RB3 metal beam rail), and that the town budgets to clean roughly one-third of its catch basins each year.

Debate and oversight: Board members asked how the town will know which basins will be cleaned in a given year and how results will be reported. The director said department staff and a senior assistant director oversee quality assurance and that the annual report includes counts of basins cleaned and linear feet of striping completed. "We do about 0.333 of our basins each year — we have about 3,000 catch basins out there," the director said when explaining budgeting assumptions.

Why it matters: The cooperative purchase approach is intended to save procurement time and leverage volume pricing. Board members asked for clarity on scope and for assurance that work awarded under these contracts will be tracked and reported.

Next steps: The board approved the awards; staff said they will use the cooperative agreements to issue purchase orders as work priorities and budgets require and will report actual work completed in annual reports.