During a special meeting Thursday, the Kosciusko County Parks and Recreation Board selected the bid from Triad Associates Inc. for the design and engineering work of the Lake City (Chinworth Bridge) Greenway trail extension.
A contract with Triad for $60,000 will be presented to the Kosciusko County Commissioners for their approval once it’s available.
After interviewing firms Nov. 9, on Nov. 16 the Parks Board unanimously selected TSW (Taylor Siefker Williams Design Group) to recommend to the commissioners for the blueways and greenways master plan. A decision on the trail extension was tabled unanimously to Thursday for the board to gather more information on the two firms they had narrowed down their decision on - Triad and Troyer Group. Troyer Group’s bid was $67,000.
Board President Rob Bishop said Thursday the board first needed to agree on what each firm’s cost was and then talk about what they had found in their further research on the companies. Then, he said, someone needed to make a motion on which bidder to approve.
Board member Matt Metzger offered up a comment not related to the costs. He said, “I did talk to the county leadership and, while they did have some reservations about Troyer or some hiccups, they didn’t think they were insurmountable and they assumed that it would be a different person than they’d be working with, and they felt fairly confident they could make something work.”
Bishop asked if that was the county highway department, and Metzger said it was.
At the Nov. 16 meeting, the Parks Board discussed some concerns the highway department and the Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG) had with Troyer on the Husky Trail project.
Metzger said Thursday that the highway department also had mentioned that they had not worked with Triad before.
Board member Mike Cusick said, looking at the costs of the bids for the trail extension, Triad bid $60,000 for the base work design and Troyer bid $67,000.
Aggie Sweeney, board member, asked, “Does that include the bid for the first phase?” Cusick said it was his understanding that both bids were for the base for the first phase of the project.
Bishop said he personally looked at both bidders again and that “both of them are more than capable of doing this portion of the work. This isn’t the visionary stuff we’re looking at for the master plan. This is for architectural and design work. Both of them are capable of doing that.”
After Bishop requested a motion from a board member on selecting a bidder for the project, Cusick made a motion for Triad and Metzger seconded it.
Metzger said, “One of the things that I liked about Triad was that they had a representative here almost the entire time, every meeting we’ve had. They understand our needs very in-depth. As you said, Rob, either one of them can do it, but ... I looked at their website and some of the work that they’ve done and I think they’ll do a good job. And it’s coming in more than 10% less than what the other bid is.”
Voting in favor of Triad were Cusick, Metzger and Board Vice President Troy Turley. Sweeney voted against the motion and Bishop did not vote.
With the vote being in Triad’s favor, Bishop said he will work with Triad to get a contract to the county commissioners. As soon as the contract is drafted, he told the board he would let them know when it will go to the commissioners.
“I did get what I would call a Swiss cheese contract from TSW. It did not have the scope of work and stuff attached to it at this point in time, but at least I was able to forward that. And then, hopefully, the county attorney can start looking at that. With the holidays, they said it was going to take a little bit of time to get the complete contract ready to go, and that may delay us with the commissioners,” Bishop said.
Sweeney wanted a clarification on what the board was expecting and the scope of work for the contract.
“I know we want the design and engineering at the minimum for the base. Do we want more than that? We have the funds that have been allocated through the county’s ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act), and I believe that at a minimum we want construction of the base to be covered by those funds. But, if the design and engineering is more than that, we’re shovel-ready for construction of another section of the trail,” she said. “And I would hate to have us not be ready to apply to future grant opportunities because we don’t have the design.”
Bishop said there’s been discussion about fundraising to get the trail extension all the way to the county line. He said they should talk to the commissioners about how far they want to go with the trail and trail design.
“And, likely, the construction would not be completed, especially past the base, in 2024, so that gives us more time to potentially do some fundraising,” Sweeney said.
Bishop agreed, saying those wouldn’t be ARPA funds so there wouldn’t be a deadline for those dollars.
The county set aside $750,000 in ARPA funds for the design and build of the greenway extension and almost $80,000 for the master plan. The town of Winona Lake also has about $30,000 in grant funding it has offered to go toward the master plan. The ARPA dollars have to be allocated by the end of 2024 and spent by the end of 2026.
Metzger said one thing he would like to see in the contract are some firm deadlines. If Triad and TSW don’t meet the deadlines in the contract, Metzger said there should be some serious ramifications. Bishop said they will have to work with the county attorney on that.
The next Parks Board meeting is tentatively at 1 p.m. Dec. 14.