Ford City Water Plant Bids Costlier than Budgeted
Ford City Borough Council are asking lending partner PennVEST to add the additional $700,000 to the existing approved loan to build their new water plant.
by Jonathan Weaver
Bids were opened the morning of Wednesday, August 5 with Gibson-Thomas Engineers of Latrobe for Ford City Borough’s new water treatment plant.
However, even the total of low bids for the General/Mechanical contract, electrical contract and the new water plant’s supply/install contract exceeded the budgeted amount.
Out of the eight General/Mechanical bidders, the lowest was in the amount of $2.49 million from Kukurin Contracting, of Export (Westmoreland County)
The bid was about $200,000 less than the next-lowest bid: from Perry Construction Group, of Erie (Erie County).
While Perry Construction Group had less-expensive rates for certain line-items – including building supply/erection, plant demolition and house/garage demolition, Kukurin Contracting had the lowest bid of all eight items requested.
Bids ranged from $2.49 to $2.93 million.
Half-dozen bidders from across the state bid for the electrical work in February.
Lanco Electric, Inc. of Leechburg, was the low bidder by estimating the work would cost $412,000.
A trio of bids was received for supply and install work – including the fixed base radio automatic meter reading system – with Newman Plumbing, Inc. of Zelienople (Butler County) submitted the lowest bid at less than $400,000
After totaling all bids received, the price for the water treatment plant project would eclipse $3.9 million – more than $700,000 over the $3.196 million Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority (PennVEST) loan received in April.
Because of the shortfall, Borough Council will reapply to PennVEST for the difference.
Councilman Josh Abernathy further explained.
“We’re going back to PennVEST so we can wrap it all in the same loan. DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) is aware of what’s going on – they’re in support of this,” Abernathy said.
Councilwoman Vickie Schaub also requested PennVEST Board of Directors reconsider the Borough residents’ median household income specifically in the municipality – not with the general Ford City mailing address.
“If you take just the Borough itself, that number dropped by $10,000,” Schaub said.
All five council members present at Monday’s regular meeting voted in support of the application.
Council members will also still pursue grant options to pay for the water treatment plant.
Councilpersons Schaub and Miklos will be answering tough questions from host David Croyle on tonight’s Talk of the Town on Family-Life TV (available on Comcast cable channel 23 or on the Internet at www.familylifetv.com).
By savvynewshound, August 11, 2015 @ 8:01 AM
You better be careful with the “tough Questions”. This council has an issue with anyone having an opinion of their performance, especially when they don’t give the other side a chance to respond. ie. the presentation at the Ford City Auditorium where they spent two hours telling the public how bad our PD was without a chance for a counter argument. And then again last night with their “toot your own horn” issue with the LT.