Contract awarded for Ivanhoe roadwork

IVANHOE – In a special-called meeting and workshop last Thursday, the Ivanhoe City Council identified some construction sites to remove from upcoming projects funded by a $7.9 million grant.

The funding comes through the state’s General Land Office (GLO) from federal funds through a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, from FEMA, which allows for governmental entities to use funds to develop hazard mitigation plans and rebuild in a way that reduces, or mitigates, future disaster losses within communities, according to the FEMA website. The projects outlined for Ivanhoe include work on several of the city’s roadways.

Ivanhoe mayor Skip Blackstone introduced guest Victoria Dye, with LJA Engineering, who along with the city’s public works director David Marshall, worked to identify sites to remove in order to stay within budget, Blackstone said.

“We need to discuss them and understand what sites are to be removed and why,” Blackstone began.

Dye said the city had its second bid on the project, and the lone bidder came up too high, so the state GLO asked for the project to be rebid so that each site was its own package.

Two bids were received in the rebid, from Texas Materials and from CE Barker. The totals for the base bids that came in were $7.7 million from Texas Materials and $9.4 million from CE Barker.

Dye explained how the sites for roadwork suggested to strike off the list of projects was divided into quadrants. Many of the sites, including sites along North Sherwood Forest; Ivanhoe Estates Drive and Lancelot Drive “look pretty decent compared to the rest of the roads on this project,” Dye said.

The city had budgeted $6.3 million for the packages of projects, and with removing all of the striked off sites from the list, the cost was down to $6,324,598.83, Dye said.

The recommendation from LJA Engineering was for the city to go with Texas Materials for the project. Blackstone entertained a motion to accept a contract with Texas Materials with Dye’s recommendations on struck-off sites, which was approved by the council.