The bid opening for the Starke County Courthouse elevator project has been moved to Wednesday, July 18th, according to County Commissioner Kathy Norem.
One of the timeline requirements associated with the $500,000 OCRA grant awarded to the county was that a bid opening be scheduled for May 31st. Commissioners fulfilled that requirement by holding the special session but no bids were presented at that time.
After no bids came in during that the first session, another bid opening was set for Thursday, July 12th. Auditor Kay Chaffins, Attorney Marty Lucas and Commissioner Charlie Chesak as well as Maintenance Director Jim Coad and Court House maintenance man Mike Gerhart were present in the Annex Building meeting room at 2 p.m. when the special session was scheduled to start.
The officials waited for approximately 15 to 20 minutes before deciding to end the session since no bidders were at the meeting and nothing was submitted ahead of time.
Commissioner Norem said there was a small miscommunication. She reported that after one of the interested contractors asked for additional time to complete their bid, revised specs were sent out that rescheduled the opening for 2 p.m. on July 18th.
Norem said she didn’t see the modified specifications so she was unable to notify Auditor Chaffins or the other commissioners of the date change prior to yesterday’s meeting.
The matter will likely be discussed further when the Starke County Commissioners hold their regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, July 16th.
