HUTTO – City council was divided over a bid for concrete repair on Cottonwood Creek Trail in Creekside Park, citing needs for higher standards and updated specifications.
The contract was recommended for approval by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department at the Dec. 15 meeting. The scope of work is to tear out, haul off, and replace approximately 650 linear feet of broken concrete in two areas along the trail between Front Street and Carl Stern Drive.
Mayor Mike Snyder, who wanted to table the contract until after new sidewalk specifications could be set, questioned the proposal for several reasons, starting with the low bid amount.
Four companies bid on the project. Austin-based DigDug Construction submitted a bid that was less than half the cost of the next lowest bid and won the city staff’s recommendation. However, council members seemed concerned that the disparity between DigDug’s bid of $67,877 and the next lowest bid of $143,000 might come with a hidden cost.
“I would like to know what their level of detail on their spec was, because I don’t want to go with the cheapest guy so that in five years the sidewalks look like that again,” said Snyder. “In Hutto Community Park, I don’t know when they had their sidewalks done – they’re still clean so it wasn’t that long ago – and they’re already shifted and cracked and broken up.” Jeff White, director of parks and recreation, admitted he is not a sidewalk expert but said he used the standard city details for this project request, then reviewed the submitted quotes with two other staff members. “I cannot explain why they bid this price, but they have been checked, and like I said, have excellent references,” White commented regarding DigDug Construction.
The city’s current sidewalk standard requires 4 inches of concrete poured over 2 inches of sand fortified with No. 3 rebar. Wayne Watts, interim public works director, said that the Hutto specifications match those of Leander, Georgetown and Austin. Upon remarks from several council members about how the surface conditions east of I-35 differ from those to the west, Watts agreed the standards should be reevaluated.
“You would probably want to use a 6 to 8 inch layer of sand. That would be something I would consider changing if I was involved in the process,” Watts said. He stated it was tough to build streets and structures here due to the large layers of clay. “The issue is that it changes volume with the seasonal changes and moisture. It rises and falls, pumps up and down.”
Though council members agreed in principle, the path forward proved contentious. At the end, concerns over the trail’s hazardous condition prevailed and the council voted 4-3 to proceed with awarding the contract but also issue a change order with Dig Dug to increase the sand base to levels recommended by the public works department. If the cost for the change is not more than a 25% increase, the city manager is authorized to proceed with the contract.
“My thing is the liability. If we punt on this and someone rides their bike, falls off. They’re suing the city and they’re probably going to say, this meeting, you could have started to fix the trail and you just delayed it,” said council member Randal Clark.
“It minimizes the liability of somebody getting injured, which is why we’re doing the fix right now.”
