Inflation not the only reason for the high bids rejected by the Mason City City Council for bridge maintenance program

MASON CITY — The City Council in Mason City last night rejected bids for a bridge repair and maintenance program after all were over twice the estimated cost.

The city opened three bids submitted for the project last Tuesday, which would have: replaced handrails on the bridge on North Pierce Avenue over Willow Creek; replaced expansion joint material and reset abutment bearings on the 19th Southwest overpass over the Union Pacific Railroad; approach repair and joint material replacement on the 12th Northwest overpass over the UP; as well as other miscellaneous repairs.

City Engineer Mark Rahm says the high costs can’t just be attributed to inflation.  “After the bid letting, the engineer with WHKS did talk with one of the contractors that called in to see how the bids were, how they went, and he had a conversation with him. What I understand from that was that these three contractors, they do a lot of similar work, and that’s why they bid on this one, they use a lot of the same subcontractors. He just said quite frankly they have more work than they can handle, even going into early next year. That was part of the reason, and they just threw a bid out there.”

Rahm says he anticipates when the project is re-bid at a later date that costs will go down.  “We talked about bidding it early next year and giving them a wider window, a bigger opening to complete that project, just letting them do it when they can do it. That would help us some. Just before the meeting tonight, I had a conversation with Mr. Daoud (from WHKS). We have the 12th Street bridge replacement project next year, and he suggested we possibly link those together and put those bridge repairs as alternates to that project, and that may help us as well.”

Rahm says these are routine maintenance projects and the public is not at risk due to the delay. “If these were dire needs, we would have done something different than reject bids. The things we’re looking at are maintenance items. They do need to be done, but they are nothing that endangers the public using those bridges.”

WHKS’s estimated cost of the project was $126,700. The lowest of the three bids was from Boulder Contracting LLC from Grundy Center at $267,820. The council last night unanimously voted to reject the bids.