DOUGLASS (Mont.) >> If at first you don’t succeed, well, you know the rest.
For the second time, township officials are soliciting bids for the new $900,000 highway garage planned to replace the aging structure on Municipal Drive.
The supervisors’ board unanimously voted at its Feb. 21 meeting to reject all bids for the project due to what Township Engineer Josh Hagadorn described in the meeting minutes as “discrepancies” in the bids received. Township Solicitor Robert Brant agreed, saying the bids needed to be “sanitized,” according to the minutes.
Monday night, Hagadorn informed the supervisors that the new set of bids will be opened on March 27.
The board also voted unanimously to appoint Bob Dries, the township’s part-time zoning supervisor, to act as the township’s construction manager at a cost of $45 per hour.
Township Manager Peter Hiryak said the work, several hours a day, would not interfere with his duties as zoning supervisor and would be considerably less expensive than hiring an outside firm.
Dries, who said he has decades of experience doing this kind of work, said he agreed to take the post because “I live in town and I’m a taxpayer too.”
He estimated the work, which involves taking down the old highway garage and replacing it with a new one, will take four to six months to complete.
Supervisors Chairman Anthony Kuklinski said the township has budgeted $900,000 for the project that will be paid “out of the general fund. Taxes will not be increased to pay for this project,” he said.
“We’ve been planning this for three years and we will be able to do this thanks to some very smart financing,” Kuklinski said.
