The Starke County Commissioners have chosen a contractor to replace two of the county’s bridges, but not before some concerns were raised about the county’s responsible bidding ordinance. LaPorte Construction was selected Monday to replace a bridge on County Road 25 North over Eagle Creek for just over $325,000. The company will also replace the bridge on 800 South over Bogus Run for just under $297,000.
Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler explained that LaPorte Construction was not the lowest bidder, though. Another company offered to do the work for thousands of dollars less, but Ritzler said it didn’t provide enough proof that it takes part in apprenticeship and training programs, as required by the responsible bidding ordinance. “They basically said that they don’t have any employees eligible for it, and even though they have them available, it did not state that they were part of that program,” he explained. “And in an effort to make these things equal across the board, we felt that that did not adhere to the ordinance that was passed.”
But before the commissioners even made their decision, one of the bidders filed a protest, according to Commissioner Kathy Norem. “So either that says they have a lack of confidence in our ability to read the ordinance and apply it correctly, or they think we’re going to try to circumvent it after we passed it, which I don’t know why we’d do that,” she said. “I want that in the record because that really upset me, that that protest came before they even knew what we were going to do.”
County Attorney Marty Lucas noted that this was the first major public works project Starke County has undertaken since adopting its responsible bidder ordinance back in March. “There are a couple other things that I think, maybe, we need to improve on our end, a little bit, to give a little better instructions, one of those being ‘drug-free workplace,'” he said. “We’re going to work to make that a little more clear, what’s expected out of the bidders in that area, too. What we got was kind of boilerplate that says, ‘We do that,’ but I feel that we need to go beyond boilerplate that says, ‘We do that,’ to actual evidence that they are, in fact, doing it.”
Norem added that a lot of work went into the responsible bidder ordinance, and she didn’t want to give the impression that the commissioners chose a contractor based on the bid protest itself. The cost of the bridge replacement will be covered, in part, by Community Crossings grant money from the state.
