BID AWARDED LOCALLY

City Administrator Emery Penner announced at the June 16 meeting of the Salmon City Council that Dahle Construction of Salmon submitted the lowest bid for the first phase of the city’s Water Distribution upgrade project.

Penner said there were a total of three bids however; one bid was submitted past the prescribed deadline and had to be dismissed. The two bids considered were within a thousand dollars of each other. The successful Dahle bid was $822,734.

The Phase I project includes a generator to supply power to the city’s Water Plant in case of a power outage, Pressure Relief Valves for Bar Hill locations and replacement of the Broadway Street water line. He attributed the higher price to the increased cost of the generator and the valves.

He said the bid actually put the cost a little over what the city expected to pay but Penner thought that due to the rising prices of everything involved, no matter how many times the project was bid the amount would be higher than planned.

Councilor Robin Phillips asked Matthew Hill of Keller Associates if he thought prices would be coming down anytime soon and he said he doesn’t expect that they will.

In 2020 Keller Associates was hired to do a $60,000 study to determine what the city needed to do in order to improve and safeguard the city’s water delivery system. From Keller’s list of projects, that will ultimately cost around $9 million, the top three needs according to the study were selected by the council as the Phase I priorities.

At the last City Council meeting the contractor’s contract with the city was reviewed thoroughly to be ready for signing once the contractor was selected.

Councilor Jim Baker made the motion to approve the $822,733 bid along with one minor correction in the contract’s wording. The motion passed unanimously.

Previously the city named Keller to oversee the project and research funding avenues so the firm will be sending an official ‘Notice of Award’ to Dahle Construction.

The council then granted permission to proceed and approve a required Resolution to finance Phase I of the project by way of Judicial Confirmation. The vote to approve permission to file was unanimous. The Resolution will be filed with the court.