County plows ahead on new Rib Lake highway shop
The Taylor County Highway Committee at its meeting on Tuesday approved putting out bids for site preparation and general construction for the new highway shop in Rib Lake.
Highway commissioner Ben Stanfley told the committee the project engineer thought the county should wait until November or December to put out bids, citing a similar-sized building to that which Taylor County is building which came in 30 percent more than estimated due to the rising cost of steel. Stanfley said the engineer also suggested if the county didn’t put out bids for the shop building this year, it should do the site preparation work and construct the salt and sand/salt shed since the state has decided to finance that portion of the project. Stanfley said once the site work was completed and if the price of steel came down, the county could still bid out the construction contract for the shop building this year.
Committee chairman Scott Mildbrand asked if the only reason for not bidding out the entire project was the price of steel. Stanfley said that was correct. Mildbrand said there was no guarantee the price of steel would come down and with the normal inflation rate of 5 percent per year increase in the cost of construction, he was in favor of bidding the whole project. He said with the usual disclaimer on bids that the county reserves the right to accept or reject any bid, the county could always reject the bids if the price of steel was too high.
After a brief discussion in which committee members expressed their opinion on whether or not they thought the price of construction in general would come down, Mildbrand asked Stanfley if he had any other reason for not wanting to bid out the project this year. Stanfley said he didn’t, although they probably wouldn’t get the final design for the salt shed until July. Someone suggested the county could bid for a start date after that time, which some committee members expressed concerns about possibly pouring concrete during cold weather.
Mildbrand said he was in favor of putting out two bids and let the contractors say when they are going to do the work. He said if the county doesn’t like that someone would be doing the work too late, then they could reject that bid.
County board member Rollie Thums who was attending the meeting said he agreed with Stanfley that the site work should be done this year. He said getting the site work done now will give it a chance to settle and if for some reason the project doesn’t get done this year, it won’t hurt for the site to “sit for another year.”
The committee approved bidding out the site preparation work for this year. Committee member Ray Soper said it was “silly” not to bid out the construction portion of the project, as well, just because they were afraid of going over the budget. He said there was a possibility the bids may come in within the budget and if they didn’t, the committee could always reject the bids. Soper then made a motion — which was seconded and approved — to put out construction bids, as well.
The committee also approved a motion for Stanfley to pursue an agreement with the state to fund the new salt shed.
Stanfley said the state has agreed to pay for a 45x45 foot structure with 14foot high concrete walls with a canvas hoop cover over the top that would hold approximately 1,000 tons of salt with an estimated construction cost of $280,000. He said the state would provide the funds for the project and the county would own the shed with the understanding the state would be able to use the building to store 1,000 tons of salt for a period of 40 to 50 years. Stanfley said the county would be allowed to use salt from the shed and replenish what it used. The committee also authorized Stanley to pursue obtaining a written easement agreement with Northern Natural Gas for the county to put a driveway over a pipeline on the property where the new shop is being built. Stanfley said the company has given verbal permission, but has been slow to agree to it in writing.
