Sewer bid opened by county (05/07/07)

Construction costs for a county's sewer project southwest of Portland will be somewhere between $259,000 to $659,000.

Jay County Commissioners today opened six bids for the project that will connect Poet Biorefining - Portland to the city's wastewater treatment plant.

LICA Construction had the apparent low bid at $259,688.43, while Fleming Excavating came in on the high end at $697,488.20.

Other bids were from CK Excavating for $349,509, Watson Excavating for $564,677, J.G. Case Construction for $494,530, and LPI for $376.707.

All bids were tabled and will be inspected by county engineer, Dan Watson, and Ben Adams of Commonwealth Engineers. Watson said a contract could be awarded by May 14 with construction hopefully to begin immediately.

Poet will be constructing the line to a site on the north side of the Salamonie River and the county will pay for construction of the line from that point along county road 150 South to Blaine Pike where a lift station will carry sewage to the treatment plant.

Officials at Poet have urged the county to begin the project as soon as possible as they have targeted summer or early fall for start-up at the ethanol plant.

Also today commissioners Milo Miller Jr., Gary Theurer, and Faron Parr approved amending the county's Economic Development Income Tax fund distribution for Salamonia to pay $3,000 for electric service during the recent renovation of the old school house.

Ami Huffman, Jay County Community Developer, told commissioners the bill had already been paid in February and was she unaware the request for the amendment was necessary.

"To keep from going to jail I'll second the motion," Parr said about a state board of accounts review of the payment.

Additionally today, commissioners made sheriff Ray Newton purchasing agent for new handguns for the deputies.

Newton said a handgun fund that receives money from the issuing of hand gun permits, currently has a balance of more than $10,000. He said 11 service handguns as well as 11 off-duty handguns will be purchased at a cost of $7,673 from Keesling Police Supplies of Jeffersonville.

Newton said the guns deputies are currently using are about 10 years old and will be traded when the new ones are purchased.

As Newton continues to deal with maintenance issues at the jail, he said two additional cell doors were recently repaired and "it's eating up my budget again." After using up a $15,000 maintenance fund earlier in the year, Newton then approached the county council and received an additional appropriation of $10,000.

He also explained that plumbing problems are being addressed.

"We'll just keep repairing it until we see what we can do," Theurer said about possibly expanding and upgrading the jail, a project commissioners have been looking at seriously for the past couple of months.[[In-content Ad]]