Published: June 24, 2009 11:38 am      

England doesn’t want New Albany City Council looking over his shoulder on paving plan

Sedam Contracting submitted the lowest of four bids Tuesday to the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety for paving work.

The Hanover-based company’s estimate was $795,000, as MAC Construction and Excavating provided the highest bid at just under $1.4 million. Paving was ordered by the New Albany City Council earlier this month when it approved spending up to $2 million of Economic Development Income Tax dollars for resurfacing.

The bids will be reviewed by city staff and the board will award the project during a special meeting Thursday.

Jorge Lanz of the city-hired firm Jacobi, Toombs and Lanz supplied an engineer’s estimate of up to $2 million for the contractors to bid on, but said Tuesday the process is different for this project because the scope of the work hasn’t been decided.

“We will order all the projects that need to be done based on these unit prices,” Lanz said.

Councilwoman Diane McCartin-Benedetti believed the streets to be paved were selected weeks ago, but Mayor Doug England said after the meeting that no final decisions have been made.

Benedetti addressed the contractors and asked that they keep change orders and added expenses to a minimum, though Lanz said the project’s bottom line would change after the exact range of the paving is determined.

Benedetti was referring to a list of streets submitted to the council by the administration at the request of its members on June 1. It included cost estimates for repairing the major thoroughfares, connector and neighborhood streets with the most damage.

Administration officials highlighted the streets they might be able to have paved with $2 million, as the list was originally prepared to cover $10 million-worth of resurfacing that England suggested.

When the list was handed out, Deputy Mayor Carl Malysz stressed it was a rough draft.

England said the highlighted streets were never meant to represent an exact plan. The handout to the council included contract variables that could change the project such as bid price, inspection costs and recommendations by council members.

“We’re going to pave the streets that people use the most — get the major thoroughfares,” England said.

Benedetti said she doesn’t understand why the plan isn’t ready.

“It should be done before anything is awarded,” she told the board of works.

England, whose plan for a $10 million bond issue for street work was never voted on by the council and would have likely failed to pass, said the administration and engineers will have the final say on how the paving process is handled.

“I don’t want to be micro-managed by the legislative branch and I don’t want to micro-manage them,” England said. He added the council is free to make suggestions, but said he was elected to make the executive decisions.

The mayor wants to finish paving on Spring Street as part of the project — a road that would have been rerouted for two-way traffic under England’s $10 million-paving plan.

Whatever paving is finally decided upon, officials have said it will be completed this year.