Desloge meets tonight to award bid on water project

DESLOGE — It will have taken three meetings to get it done, but the Desloge Board of Aldermen might finally award a bid for Phase Two of Desloge’s water system tonight. The board will meet in special session at 7 p.m. at City Hall to take up the measure. The meeting is open to the public.

The bids were first briefly discussed during the Feb. 19 meeting, but the board did not make a decision because members needed additional information from Metropolitan Engineering regarding the above-ground tank.

The measure was again tabled at the March 10 meeting because the board lacked a majority vote for it to pass. Aldermen Robert Hulsey and Chris Gremminger were absent from the meeting and Alderman Jerry Hulsey abstained from the vote due to a work conflict. Hulsey is employed by the Park Hills Water Department and has made it a standard practice to abstain from votes dealing with the water system.

The drafted ordinance called for the board to hire Unnerstall Contracting at a cost of $1,982,808 for the underground work of the project. A drafted ordinance was not available for the above-ground tank.

Camp said the city is still waiting on the references to check out on one of the contractors that submitted a bid for the above-ground tank.

“Metropolitan Engineering is checking out the references and we still need a little more information on one of the contractors so we won’t be making a decision on the above-ground tank tonight,” Camp said.

Phase Two will consist of connecting approximately 150 more water customers to the new system as well as constructing a new above-ground storage tank at Brightwell Park. The connecting work can proceed without the above-ground storage tank, so the board decided to go ahead and with that part of the project.

Camp said customers included in Phase Two live in an area that is best defined by Hawthorn Street to the north, Roosevelt Street to the east, Grant Street to the west and Locust Street to the south.