The Lovell Town Council wrestled with awarding bids on the Legacy Subdivision Monday night and eventually selected the third-lowest bidder to perform the job to build infrastructure for the new housing development north of Lovell Middle School.
The town received five bids on the project to build streets, curb and gutter and water and sewer lines for the project, and engineer Willie Bridges of Pryor Mountain Engineering told the council at a special meeting Monday that each of the two lowest bidders had made calculation errors in their bids.
NEPECO of Byron was the apparent low bidder with a project cost of $415,065, and Bridges said there were minor calculation errors that he attributed to “rounding of the bid amounts.”
The second-lowest bid came from Nicholson Dirt Contracting of Burlington at $445,515, and Bridges said there was a significant calculation error of some $7,000 in that bid. The third-lowest bid, from Wilson Brothers Construction Co. of Cowley, at $463,480, contained no calculation errors, Bridges noted.
Bridges informed the council that they had some choices to make. He said they could accept the low bid, even with the error, but by law could reject the two lowest bids, because of the errors.
The issue at hand Monday, however, appeared to be whether NEPECO, which has for many years performed oil field work in Wyoming, would be the best choice for the town in performing municipal project work.
Bridges recommended that the town award the bid to NEPECO as the lowest bidder but did note that the company’s qualifications form showed that NEPECO had not done much municipal utility work.
“They do have the equipment and the personnel,” he said.
Councilman Bruce Wolsey asked what experience NEPECO has that is close to the job at hand, and Bridges said the company has experience laying pipeline in oil fields, mostly pressurized lines rather than gravity flow lines. He said he, as the engineer, would insure that the lines are built to the proper grade but in answer to a question agreed that Pryor Mountain would likely have to be “on the job site” more with NEPECO as the contractor than with the others.
Although he said the additional time would likely not exceed the engineering estimate, it could cost as much as $20,000 more in engineering fees. In answer to other questions, he also said that some of the quantities listed in the NEPECO bid were not consistent with the other four bids.
“I have worked with and around NEPECO for many years,” Councilman Brian Dickson said. “They’re a great company, and they are great people. But do they have the people qualified and who know how to do this?
“They’re a great company, but oil field work is completely different than water and sewer work. I have concerns.”
Bridges said the council could reject, by law, any bids with errors in the calculations and also has the right to be able to call another bid “more responsive.” He noted that four of the five bids came in below the engineer’s estimate for the project of $560,840.
After further discussion, Dickson made the motion to reject the two lowest bids because of errors in the bids and accept the Wilson Brothers bid in the amount of $463,480. The motion passed 4-0 with Wolsey abstaining for “business reasons.”
 In other business Monday, the council discussed a sprinkling system for the new east Little League baseball park. Since only one proposal had been received – from Mayor Bruce Morrison – the council had urged Town Administrator Bart Grant to seek other estimates. He said he contacted two other companies more than once but had yet to receive a proposal.
Grant said there is some dirt work remaining, and they he’d like to get going on the sprinkler system. Dickson said the town should “go with the bid you’ve got,” and with that, Wolsey made the motion to approve a bid from Morrison in the amount of $7,450 for labor and materials. Morrison recused himself from the process and did not vote. The motion passed 4-0.
In the third regular agenda item Monday, the council noted that the town has received a permit to encroach on a Wyoming Dept. of Transportation public right-of-way in order to place an access road along U.S. 14A-310 west of town to the old water intake settling ponds, which have been proposed as public fishing holes.
Grant said the town has one year to begin the road project and 90 days to complete the project once it has begun. The council expressed skepticism that the fishing ponds project will ever be done but said a public ramp for river access is possible. Whatever happens, the town wants access to the site, hence the encroachment permit.
Finally on Monday, the council approved three resolutions requested by the Four Corners Bar: 1) A 24-hour permit during Mustang Days from 6 a.m. on Friday, June 26, to 6 a.m. on Sunday, June 28 (applies to all liquor establishments in town); 2) An open container permit for a fenced-off area on Saturday, June 6, for the motorcycle cancer fun run; and 3) An open container permit for a fenced-off area during Mustang Days from June 26 at 6 a.m. through June 28 at 6 a.m.
After adjourning the special meeting at 8 p.m., the council went into a work meeting to work on the 2009-10 fiscal year budget.
The next regular council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12.