5.5. SR 08-12-2002 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Howard R, Green Company August 8, 2002 File: 806550J-0071 Item 5.5. Honorable Mayor and City Council City of Elk River 13065 Orono Parkway Elk River, MN 55330 RE: 175TM AVENUE IMPROVEMENTS CONSTRUCTION BIDS Dear Council Members: We have tabulated the bids received for the 175th Avenue Improvements, which were opened on Thursday, July 25, 2002. As you are aware, this is a federal aid project having a TEA 21 grant included in the funding for the project. This funding requires that the bidding process follow the federal process. The City of Elk River has elected on all projects with federal money involved to follow the Delegated Contract Process (DCP). Therefore, the City was in charge of the bidding process rather than the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) handling that portion of the project. One of the biggest differences in a federal aid project bidding process versus a City of Elk River local bidding process is that the front page of the contract documents has the following statement: "NOTICE TO BIDDERS: IN SUBMITTING A BID, YOU MUST RETURN THIS COMPLETE PROPOSAL. YOU MUST INITIAL CHANGES MADE IN THE SCHEDULE OF PRICES IN THE PROPOSAL AND ACKNOWLEDGE ADDENDA ON THE BACK COVER SHEET." This statement is used and the entire proposal returned so that the contractor submitting the bid is acknowledging agreement with all items in the contract documents as written. There were a total of seven bids submitted. Five of the bidders followed the directions and submitted the entire proposal. Two of the bidders submitted only a bid and a bid bond. We are recommending that the two bids submitted that did not comply with the bid requirements by returning the entire proposal be rejected as non-responsive bids. We have discussed this issue extensively with various people at the MnDOT. These include Kelvin Howieson, District 3 State Aid Engineer; Gary Hillstrom, who works in the Federal Project Development section of State Aid at Central Office; Gary Ericksen and his supervisor Don Orgeman, who work in the Office of Construction and Contract Administration where Don is the Contract Administration Engineer. Without exception, all of the MnDOT personnel we discussed this issue with indicated that MnDOT would reject the two non-responsive bids. We would also remind the City Council that because of the Park Pointe development being dependent on this project for sanitary sewer service, and because of the time of year, rejecting the bids and re-bidding the project is not an option. Any re-bidding of the project would push significant portions of the construction into next year, causing delay in the delivering of services to Park Pointe and increased cost to the City. Ltr-080702-Council[2] 1326 Energy Park Drive · St. Paul, MN 55108 · 651/644-4389 fax 651/644-9446 toll free 888/368-4389