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Village of Lansing Trustees voted 3 to 1 to accept a bid on a project that will add a traffic light to the intersection of Craft and Triphammer Roads.  In addition the project will include a slight widening of the intersection to make room for a new right turn lane, and improvements to pedestrian connectivity.  But even the lowest bid came in 24% higher than anticipated.

There were only two bidders for the contract," said Village Clerk Jodi Dake.  "It was considerably fewer than expected.  The lowest bidder was Binghamton Road Electric, LLC with a base bid of $274,107.  This bid is $52,947 above the engineer's estimate.  That was a little bit of a shocker."

Dake said that the project may still be able to be paid for with 'creative budgeting', but if there is not enough in the general budget it will need to be taken from Village reserves.  If reserve monies are needed it will add 30 days to the process to allow for permissive referendum.

Some of the pain will be mitigated by two grants totalling $40,000 the Village received for the project.

Village Attorney David Dubow said the Board could choose to reject all the bids, but noted that Mayor Donald Hartill, who was unable to attend Monday's meeting,  wants to proceed with the project.  Officials noted that the project has been in the works for a long time and most agreed it should go forward.

"The project has been something that everybody is pretty committed to," Dubow said.  It really comes down to whether you want to wait.  It may be that the engineers put together numbers that were less than they should be.  You never know.  You'd love to get more bids, but the market out there is very difficult."

Trustee Ronny Hardaway questioned why the engineer's estimate was so low.  But Dubow noted that contractors are not hurting for work right now.

"They're not hungry so they're putting in high bids," he said.  "If they get it that's great, but they have more than enough work.  We're seeing that with some very large sewer and water projects (in other municipalities).  It's remarkable how high the bids are."

Dubow added that if the Village refuses the bids there is no guarantee that prices will come in lower.  The Village did refuse the first round of bids on its new Village Hall at the end of 2012, but accepted a bid on the 2662 square foot $1.2 million building in 2013.  Those bids were still higher than expected.

Deputy Mayor Gerry Monaghan and trustees Pat O'Rourke and Hardaway voted to award the contract to Binghamton Road Electric, LLC.  Trustee John O'Neill voted no.

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