Next Step, Check!

Tuesday night I was just too thrashed to write a report out of the afternoon's events at the Board of Supes that afternoon, January 28. Well, it wasn't just the afternoon, the meeting went on until 7:40 PM! You know, like the "good old days" of past sewer meetings in those very chambers, and I say that with my nose pinched between my fingers and with the halo of a headache around the edges of my skull.

I have 15 pages of notes from that I will condense into a few paragraphs.

The sewer is moving ahead, Items 28 and 29 both passed, the first unanimously, the second on a 3 to 2 vote.

That Item 29, the main part of which was awarding the treatment plant contract to the third lowest bidder, was a tough one. I really felt bad about that. All the Supes were feeling low about the way the bids happened. Two of the contractors, the lowest two I might add, had made errors on the paperwork and this DQed them. There was a lot of legal stuff explained by both County Counsel Rita Neal and Deputy Legal Counsel Patrick Foran,* who was the expert on what the ramifications were to either allowing one of the goofed-up bids to be accepted or for going out to re-bid, thereby dumping all the bids and starting over (which would have meant a three to four-month delay, with no guarantees any bid would come back cheaper than even the third highest bid, and that the third highest bidder might sue).

In case any of you have forgotten, it is quite expensive to write up a bid.

Not in County history on large bids like this, had they had a job re-bid.

Assuming you readers do not want a book here, I will sum it up. (And I fault no Supe on their vote. It was a really awful situation with the three contractors in contention making their pleas.) But enough "Yes" votes carried it and and we move ahead. I will say, the contractor group sitting behind me said, "We are going to sue!" So look for some new stuff on the Supe's closed session in a few weeks if they carry out their threat.

Naturally a lot more happened in all those hours in that chamber, but you might not want to read it all.

Big News! A Town Hall sewer meeting next month on February 26! So mark your calendars! More info to be posted here as the particulars become available!

* A bit of sewer trivia for those sewer trivia enthusiasts out there: Patrick Foran was the County's legal guy on Resolution 2010-131, authorizing the Supes to let the Director of Public Works to apply for the US Department of Agricultural Rural Utilities Service Funding (USDA) for the sewer, which supplied the other half to the SRF monies to build our sewer!