Line painting contract awarded with stipulations

Times Reporter

 

Tenders closed on May 21 for the Town’s line painting contract with the lowest bid announced at the May 22 special Town council meeting. While the interest wasn’t as high as originally hoped, administration feels confident they can ensure the work holds up, and will be completed to the proper specifications. 

“It seemed we had lots of interest on the Alberta Purchasing Connection website. We had approximately 11 groups download our tender bid documents so we were optimistic that we were going to see significant interest in our tender, and have over the past couple of years,” said Jesse Parker, director of operations and engineering for the Town.

“Unfortunately with the end of tender we only received two tenders.”

The two bids were opened on May 21. The low bid worked out to $26,141.18 for the entire scope of work. 

“The company that was the low bid is a company that we have had experience with previously, it’s a company called Line West,” said Parker. 

There have been concerns in the past with the company, though nothing that would see the Town refuse to work with them. Some of the issues have been getting the contractor back on warranty, deficiency items and getting the work done in the right time frame. 

The quality of line paint and the resiliency have also been past concerns. Upon calling references provided for Line West Parker found they were fairly neutral. 

“I have indicated to the contractor that we will be very diligent this year in terms of our expectation and the application rate and the thickness of which the line paint is to be applied,” said Parker. 

“We’ll have a sample area established in which that will be our expectation for what the line paint application rate and thickness will be, and we’ll use that as a reference or the review as we go through the areas.”

As the roads are being painted the Town and contractor, to ensure both parties are in agreement of the quality, will review them. Parker said he had phoned the second bid contractor as well. They do not have a lot of municipal experience and don’t quite have the equipment needed to do the scope of work.  

He is hoping by having a test area with Line West it will help resolve past issues. 

Councillor Bob Sobol raised the question of why the tenders aren’t put out to the public earlier in the year.

“Giving these companies a little more time and giving us the opportunity to say no to a tender is a powerful tool I think. We’re sort of stuck…it’s very hard to say no at this point. We can say no but we won’t have line painting until September then,” said Sobol.

Volker Stevin does the line painting work on the highways. Currently Parker is looking into the possibility of the Town purchasing its own line paint equipment to do the follow behind and crosswalk, stop bars and parking lines. He then hopes to talk to Volker Stevin about having them paint the centre lines and the lane lines which would see a reduction in the costs to the town.

Council awarded the 2013 line-painting contract to Line West.