Council balks when local firm not chosen

Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader

Third St. SW in Slave Lake is due for rehabilitation. In fact it was due three years ago, but was put off.

Now it’s being put off even longer, pending a legal opinion on how job bids are evaluated.

The idea initially, council heard at its June 7 meeting, was to replace both the water and sewer lines as well as rebuilding the road. But in-house inspection of the sewer line last year found it to be in better shape than expected. So the proposal has been downgraded a bit, to include spot repairs.

The 6-inch water line is to be upgraded to a 12-incher.

Proposed are two phases for the project. First will be the replacement of the water line, looping of the water line across the CN tracks, spot repairs to the sewer line and paving over the excavated part once it’s been filled in.

Next year will see final re-paving.

According to the report in council’s agenda package, the project was planned in two phases to allow a year for trench settlement.

The recommendation before council was to award the contract to E Construction for $2.67 million. But councillors wanted more information on why a more local contractor (which had a lower did) wasn’t chosen.

Council went in camera to discuss the matter. What was said there we can’t report, but the upshot is the matter has been tabled to a future meeting, while the town gets a legal opinion. On what, exactly, was not specified.

Based on what was said earlier, the local contractor had failed to provide some details that had been requested in the tender package.

When a councillor asked if the town couldn’t follow up and try to get the local contractor’s bid into compliance, he was told the deadline is the deadline, and if they start making exceptions, legal troubles could ensue.

Another issue, though, is whether the ‘weighting’ system for evaluating bids is right. As it stands, it only gives 30 per cent weight to price. Should we put more emphasis on local and less on experience? asked Slave Lake mayor Tyler Warman. He made a motion requesting a report on the weighting system for purchasing and bid evaluation.