Lone asphalt bid OK’d for 4 streets

Circle S Paving of Clinton was selected Tuesday to overlay portions of four city streets with new asphalt. As the only bidder and a local company which has done lots of work for the city in years past, that was no surprise.
But it still was the most discussed topic at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting. That was because Councilman Jason Hulin did not feel the bid specifications were properly drawn.
The streets to be overlaid are Commerce Road from U.S. Highway 183 west to Neptune Drive, S. 10th Street from S. 13th Street north to Jaycee Lane, Custer Avenue from N. 15th Street west to N. 28th Street, and Dougherty Avenue from N. 6th Street west to N. 16th Street. All will get two inches of new asphalt except Commerce, which will get three inches.
Circle S’s bid was $339,212. Public Works Director Donald Webb said Thursday that $200,000 was budgeted for overlay in the current fiscal year which started July 1, 2017, and another $200,000 is in the budget for the year beginning July 1, 2018, so there will be plenty of money to cover the four jobs.
Hulin, who is employed by the Oklahoma Department of Transportation as a project inspector and works often with bid specs, kicked off the council discussion by saying the specs for this project contained too many variables. He was especially concerned that they did not say what depth of new asphalt should be laid.
Had there been bidders other than Circle S, he said one might have submitted a bid based on an inch of asphalt and another bidder one based on 2½ inches.
“Nothing in the bid documents specifies depth,” he said. Without that information, he said competing bids – if there had been others – would not have been apples to apples.
“At ODOT we bid it by the ton,” he said.
Hulin was right for the three streets getting two inches of overlay; their depth was not specified in the bid specs. However, City Manager Mark Skiles did point out that the three inches for Commerce Road was.
“That’s an omission on our part,” he said of the failure to include the two inches for the other streets.
However, he disagreed with any implication that the project should have been bid by the ton. He indicated that if city employees tried to determine the number of tons needed and made a mistake, the blame would be on the city and the contractor could not be forced to make it right.
Since the amount of Circle S’s bid had not been mentioned at that point, Skiles also said, “If you want us to rebid, now’s the time.”
“We never get more than one bid anyhow,” said Hulin, who repeated, “With this, there’s too many variables.”
Skiles wanted to know what he was talking about. Hulin mentioned compaction and allowances for locations where some of the streets cross railroad tracks. And without a depth requirement for the asphalt, he said somebody could basically “paint the street black” and call it done.
“Help us write the bids, Jason,” said Skiles.
“I mentioned that a couple of years ago,” replied Hulin.
Mayor David Berrong said Circle S would be at a disadvantage if new bids were sought now, since its bid – although not announced – had been displayed publicly on a screen visible to the audience at the council meeting.
Councilman Don Rodolph asked Webb why he hadn’t put the asphalt requirements in the bid documents.
“It was an oversight on my part,” replied Webb.
After more exchanges, Berrong asked, “Do we want to consider acceptance of this bid?”
“We should consider the amount of overlay,” said Rodolph.
Hulin eventually made a motion to accept the Circle S bid but specified that it be two inches of overlay on three of the streets and three inches on the fourth. Bobby Stewart seconded, and the vote was 5-0 with Rodolph, Berrong and Chuy Rosales also saying yes.
Councilmen didn’t have such extended discussion on another project they were scheduled to consider bids on Tuesday. That was for construction of a support building at the Acme Brick Park soccer complex. There was no discussion because no bids were received.
Skiles said his thought was to restructure the bid notice in such a way that smaller contractors within the community could bid on different parts of it. Nothing was said, so presumably that will be done.
The building evidently would include a concession stand and restrooms.