by Geoff Fox
Town officials opened, reviewed, and voted on bids pertaining to the town’s comprehensive plan, demolition of the house at Kirkwood Park, and the sale of the former Weaver’s building at their last meeting.
Town Manager Mike Faith said the bids had been received by their respective deadlines and had been left in the town office safe until the July 8 town meeting.
The first group of bids was for services to prepare the town’s comprehensive plan.
Under Maryland law, the town is required to update the comprehensive plan every 10 years, which Faith said the town is beyond.
The plan is required by the state, Faith said, to be the blueprint for the town’s future growth and development. It also helps when the town applies for grant monies.
When the town applies for those monies, the agencies would look at the comprehensive plan to see if the monies align with what the town wants to do.
The town applied for and received grant money for their comprehensive plan revision, to the tune of $50,000.
Faith said he’s already talked to the town’s Planning Commission and they will be part of the process of the comprehensive plan.
Faith opened four bids in relation to the comprehensive plan for the first time at the meeting.
The bids came from ARRO Consulting ($71,540), RK&K ($125,500), EPR PC ($97,758), and Mackin Engineers ($45,000).
Of the four, ARRO and RK&K have both done work for the town in the past.
In 2018, ARRO was part of the town’s entrance into replacing the wastewater facility. RK&K is currently working on the project and is the town’s on-call engineering firm for water and wastewater.
Faith said the comprehensive plan is a big project as the state has added a housing component into the comprehensive plan that hadn’t been in previous Hancock plans.
He said two of the firms submitting bids told him that the housing portion of the plan is almost a separate project itself.
Faith said the project had been put out to bid twice, but there were no takers until he emailed firms to solicit bids.
Faith said he was going to have to go through each bid and make sure each bid addressed every element of the request for proposal, or RFP, but said officials could choose a bid at the meeting.
Mayor Roland Lanehart, Jr. said it was odd that Macklin’s bid was so much lower than the other three bids.
Councilwoman Terry Breakall-Smith noted the hour difference in some of the bids.
Faith said he wanted to move forward as the town has already received extensions on the grant and the town needs to spend the money.
Town attorney Ed Kuczynski said the officials could tentatively approve a firm, subject to Faith’s confirmation.
“I get it with the disparity in prices you want to make sure you’re getting the right product,” Kuczynski said.
Officials voted to accept Mackin’s bid, so long as the RFP conditions were met and if Councilman Richard Strong gave a favorable review after he looked through the bid packet.
Kirkwood house demolition
Town officials voted to accept a bid to demolish the house at the entrance of Kirkwood Park.
The town had purchased the house and property in 2016 to have more parking at the park on Creek Road. Since that time, the house has sat empty with various ideas tossed around for uses, along with the idea to just tear the house down.
The town only received two bids – RW Excavating at $19,400 and Souders Excavating for $33,000. Faith said there were three firms reach out about the bids, but only two submitted bids.
The house is to be removed, holes drilled into the foundation, leveled down three feet below ground level, filled in with shale with topsoil on that, and once leveled, be seeded with grass on top.
Lanehart said the only thing the town is responsible for would be unhooking the utilities.
Faith wanted to make it clear that when driving by the house on Creek Road, it might look like it could be fixed up and livable, but that’s not the case.
A previous town manager had an inspection on the house and it was found to be multiple problems, including mold, with very high renovation costs.
A secondary concern was it’s the gateway to one of the town’s parks and the town doesn’t want to lose control of the property or let it become blighted.
On the deed to the property, there’s a right of way where if there was a septic issue, the owner could put the new septic tank on the town’s property, Lanehart said.
The excavating company would have to dispose of the remains of the house.
Town officials agreed to approve the RW Excavating bid with the condition they print up a new sheet with the same specs as the other bid.
With the removal of the house, the town could possibly move the old, non-digital announcement board that had been along Pennsylvania Avenue to that location at Kirkwood Park.
