City Communicates OnFocus – Matt Bronson, Project Development Chief for the North Central Region of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, provided an update to the Common Council on the delays over the North Central Avenue resurfacing project.
“In May of this year, we let bids for the North Central Ave. project,” said Bronson. “They came in over 50% higher than we were anticipating. After we review those bids and analyze them, and look at the design and the schedule, what we do is make a determination if we’re going to move forward with the project. In this case, after our analysis of all the bids, we felt that we could reschedule the project and let it next year, and hopefully see significant savings by re-letting it.”
“Right now our our schedule is to send this out for new bids this December,” said Bronson. “We’re making some minor changes to the plan and what the schedule will allow for next year’s construction, and then we would send out for bids in December.”
“I don’t buy it,” said alderman Tom Buttke. “We ask for a lot of bids too. We don’t do it in the summertime because contractors have their jobs lined up. You guys know better than that. You put those requests for proposals and bids in the wintertime. I wish you could go talk to the citizens in Marshfield because they’re not happy.”
“Can you provide to us a list of other projects that were delayed for the same reason this year?” asked Councilman Tom Witzel.
“In our region, we do not have any other projects in our region that were delayed,” said Bronson. “There are a few across the state that were not awarded due to similar reasons as this one.”
“Governor Walker just gave the state $274 million more dollars so that we can do we can do more things faster,” said Mayor Bob McManus. “That was in fiscal year 2018, this year, and you mean to tell me that we’re $500,000 above your bid, when we’ve got almost a quarter of a billion dollars and we get kicked back, and we’re the only lucky one? I don’t buy it, and I hope that you all will do a better job.”
