Airport runway renovation to begin on Monday

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

Mark Mitchell, project manager for the airport project, told the Nevada Airport Board on Thursday that the contractors are ready to start work on the Nevada Municipal Airport runway Monday.

"The airport will be closed at 8 a.m., Monday," he said.

If all goes well, the runway renovation will be completed by early September.

Plans for a new terminal building, however, took two giant steps backwards when the board voted unanimously to reject all of the bids as being too high and rebid the project. Board members also said there may have been some irregularities in the bidding process. This time the board is recommending that the city control the entire bid process, rather than let the architect solicit bids for the project again.

"Because of the lousy service, we have received we are going to do it ourselves," Warren Schooley said.

"I feel there was a mistake in the bidding process," Monte Curtis, airport board chairman, said.

Curtis said that an addendum to the bid specifications was sent out Thursday morning and not all of the contractors bidding on the project received them.

The bids were opened Thursday afternoon.

"I feel that it didn't give all the builders an equal opportunity to bid," Curtis said.

Mitchell told the board that the city had not received a copy of the addendum.

"I feel we need to have a face-to-face meeting with Chris Ball and explain our concerns, and let him explain his concerns to us," Curtis said.

In addition to the irregularities in the bid process, all of the bids were well above the estimates from the architect.

The airport board was making their decisions on the design of the building based on an estimated cost of $351,000 for a basic finished building, out of a the $399,000 the city has left to spend for the entire project, leaving them $49,000 to use to dress up its appearance with some rock on the exterior.

The bids all came in about $200,000 over the estimate. The bids ranged from a low of $532,100 from Lacy Beo to a high of $620,000 from Rich Kramer.

Some of the discrepancy between the estimated cost and the bids is due to the need to install a covered gutter in the ramp to the hangar to keep water from running into the building.

The Federal Aviation Administration has requirements for the grade of the ramp into the hangar and we have to meet their specifications, Jody Bryson, airport manager, said.

It costs $40,000 to $50,000 just for the material the companies were proposing to use to cover the gutter, Mitchell told the board.

"We were told we had $50,000 to spare rather than looking for $135,000 to cut," board member Scott Buerge said.

Mitchell told the board that rebidding the project will set everything back by about 45 days since the city has to follow a 30-day bid process required by the Community Development Block Grant that is paying for much of the cost of the terminal building.

To help speed up the process as much as possible Mitchell said that the board will need to meet next week and that he would contact Chris Ball, the architect for the terminal, about having a face-to-face meeting with the airport board.