Cerro Gordo supervisors reject lone bid submitted for Clear Lake public approach improvement project, bid over twice estimated cost

CLEAR LAKE — The Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors this week rejected the lone bid submitted for a public approach improvement project at Clear Lake. The project includes lining the shores at the public approaches with vegetation and riprap rocks, as well as installing new steps down to the shore in some locations in an attempt to minimize sediment going into the lake.

County Engineer Brandon Billings says the single bid submitted was over twice the estimated cost.  “Our estimate we had for this work was based on estimates we got at the very beginning of this whole thing from actual contractors. It was only around $150,000. This project we had only a single bidder. $401,000 was the single bidder. My recommendation would be to reject this.”

Billings suggests instead of bidding out the entire project that they break it up into sections with the intent of lowering the cost.   “Maybe we’ll get  a contractor to do all the riprap, and then when that’s done, we get somebody to finish the vegetation. We’ll piecemeal this together to end up getting a better price, because I think some of the stuff like placing those steps we purchased are kind of overwhelming for all of these smaller contractors that can do this stuff. We’re going to try and piece this together in a way that maybe smaller guys can get in there and do it where they weren’t feeling comfortable before.”

  The supervisors unanimously rejected the lone bid submitted by Jackson Landscaping of Mason City.