INDOT’s Community Crossings program is drawing concerns from Hamlet Town Council President Dave Kesvormas.
“I’m not very happy that all the big guys get to compete for all those bids, and it disallows the little guys, the small businesses, especially local people, to give them the opportunity to bid,” Kesvormas said during a recent town council meeting. “At least if we were to break it up, I think we could’ve got a lot more money for our sidewalks, as we did in the past.”
Kesvormas felt that small local companies can’t compete with the larger contractors on entire projects, but noted that they were able to take part when sidewalk and paving work were allowed to be awarded separately.
“Small contractors generally don’t have the time to have somebody sitting in an office to go chase after quotes that they send out to all the little towns who get those projects,” Kesvormas added. “They’re usually out working, doing the work themselves or supervising their work, so when will they have time? And it limits them, and I think that there’s a lot of value that we get from the local contractors, the small guys.”
Hamlet was awarded more than $148,000 in Community Crossings funding this year for improvements to Division Street, but town officials decided to scale back the sidewalk portion of the project after bids were opened. Last year’s Railroad Street project went through similar changes.
Kesvormas said he voiced his concerns to Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch. He said she promised to look into it.
