Ferdinand Town Council approves three important bids

The Ferdinand Town Council met last night for the regularly scheduled meeting. Several important decisions were made during the brief meeting.

The first item on the docket was the decision on awarding the contract for the town’s new police station. The town is in the process of converting the old Ferdinand library building into the long awaited new police station.

Street Superintendent and Property Manager Tom Lueken presented the council with the bids from Seufert Construction and Streicher Construction for the construction of the new station. The difference in the bids was minimal but the council unanimously decided to go with the lower bid of $179,694 and a completion time of 180 days from Seufert Construction. The council could have spent an additional $5306 and had the project done in 120 days but instead decided to save the money.

“We can use the $5306 in savings for another project and the police department has a building now,” said Councilwoman Debbie Johnson.

The next item on the agenda was the repaving of the Town Hall parking lot. Again Lueken informed the council that the bids were close. Suefert Construction was $98,900 for asphalt and River Town Construction bid $131,999 for concrete.

Lueken stated the engineering estimate for the construction was around $140,000 to $150,000 for the project and both bids were well under that.

The Council discussed the ability to repair the asphalt compared to the concrete as well as the savings of over $30,000 between the two bids. The savings was important as the money could be used for other projects and the ability to repair asphalt easily also influenced the unanimous decision to approve the bid from Seufert Construction.

Lueken pointed out that the low bid on the asphalt was not the total cost of the new parking lot some labor costs would be involved from the town employees in completion of the project and drainage would have to be addressed on the town’s side.

The next item on the agenda was the award for the street improvements. Calcar Paving of Jasper was awarded the bid of $146,925.82. Lueken recommended the board go with the Calcar bid and the council approved it unanimously.

“We are thrilled to death to get started and get these things done. I have been kiddingly telling people that we weren’t going to do anything till we got  are parking lot fixed in front of the townhall. Now we have all three of them,” said Sicard. “Plus all the bids came in under what we estimated they would be.”

The Council then approved a waiver of part of a special connection fee for sanitary sewer for a Ferdinand resident, Ryan Haas. The council approved the waiver.

The council then approved a motion for Ken Sicard to sign a contract between the Town of Ferdinand and the Township of Ferdinand for fire protection.  The contract allows the Township to pay the town $31,000 in two payments.

Next the council approved a motion for Sicard to sign a contract between the Town of Ferdinand and the Township of Ferdinand for use of the municipal public parks. The township would pay the town $16,500 in two payments.

A discussion then ensued about the reclassification of the Sisters of Saint Benedict water meters. The Sisters are attempting to save money on their water and sewer and had requested they be taken off the 6 inch meters that supply the monastery.

The Sisters are the only one in town that are on the six inch meters and they are charged a base rate for this type of meter. They are being charged for all the water that flows through the meter on the sewage side despite the fact that a large portion of the water does not go into the sewage during the summer months. This is watering the grounds of the campus.

Wastewater Superintendent Roger Schaefer is recommending the Sisters have deduct meters installed for their watering efforts. The amount of water that is measured through these meters would be deducted from their total sewer bill. There would be a charge to install the deduct meters but the savings would be realized quickly.

The Council recommended Schaefer present the Sisters with the option of adding the deduct meters.