Sullivan Co. School Board votes to issue notice of intent to award $4.74 million in contracts for construction project

BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: March 3, 2011

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The Sullivan County School Board on Wednesday took a significant step toward starting the construction of an eight-classroom addition to the Sullivan County Elementary School and a renewable energy plant to help heat the school and Sullivan County Junior/Senior High School.

In a series of 6-3 votes, the board on Wednesday passed motions to issue notices of intent to award four contracts totaling $4.74 million for the construction of the addition and the renewable energy plant, according to Steve Gobble, superintendent.

The motions are contingent on the state Department of Education approving PlanCon E and PlanCon F, which are documents that the school district is required to submit to the state related to the construction of the addition, as well as approval of the contracts by the administration of the Sullivan County School District, he said.

"I am extremely pleased" with the school board's vote, he said.

All of the contracts that were awarded were the low bidders, except for the mechanical construction contract.

The school board voted unanimously to allow the low bidder for the mechanical construction contract, Rado Enterprises Inc. of Bloomsburg, to withdraw its bid, due to clerical errors it had made in the bid, Gobble said.

The district administration office will be completed as part of the project, Gobble said.

Because the school district did not know if it would have enough money to complete the district administration office at this time, it had asked the contractors to submit a "deduct" or an amount they would deduct from their base bid for only completing the walls and roof of the district administration office, which will be located in the addition.

The school board decided not to go forward with the deduct option, and to instead complete the district administration office at this time, Gobble said.

In addition, the school board decided to go forward with another optional part of the project, namely constructing an auxiliary room for the Sullivan County Elementary School. However, under the motions that passed, the school district would reserve the option for nine months of not going forward with the construction of the auxiliary room, if it ran into financial difficulties with the project, Gobble said.

"We don't expect there to be issues" with getting state approval for PlanCon E and PlanCon F, he said.

Those voting in favor of the motions to issue a notice of intent to award the contracts were Rebecca Ferguson, J. Wilson Ferguson, Nancy Craft, Darwin Hatch, James Lambert, and Tim Nitcznski. Those voting nay on the motions were Molly Kinsey, Virginia Miller and Kimberly Phillips.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.

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