Community Corner
Parkway Boulevard Extension Back On Oconee County Board Of Commissioners Agenda On Tuesday Night
The Commissioners will take up the bids for design work on the roadway, which is to open up land behind Lowe's and Wal-Mart for development.
The contract for design of the extension of Parkway Boulevard is back on the agenda for the Oconee County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday night, but this time there is no indication that the county is prepared to award the contract.
The BOC tentatively agreed at its meeting on Aug. 26 to accept the low bid of $96,925 submitted by ABE Consulting of 2410 Hog Mountain Road but reversed course a week later–on Sept. 2-- and decided to review the five submitted bids another time.
On Aug. 27, Jon Williams of Williams and Associates, 2470 Daniells Bridge Road, filed an open records request with the county asking to see the scoring sheets for all five submitted bids as well as all accompanying materials. Williams had submitted the next lowest bid of $98,980.
On Sept. 4, Abe Abouhamdan, owner of ABE Consulting, filed two open records requests with the county asking for details of consulting contracts of the Oconee County Industrial Development Authority involving the Caterpillar site work and for costs incurred by the county repairing a road at that site.
Williams and Associates had an $870,000 no-bid contract with the IDA for the Caterpillar site work, including for design work on Orkin Drive. That roadway had to be reconstructed because borings taken during construction missed a deep waste pit beneath the future road.
The contract for professional design services for the Parkway Boulevard Extension does not appear on the tentative agenda for the BOC’s Oct. 7 meeting, suggesting that the county may be considering rebidding the project for what would be a third time.
For more on the story, go to Oconee County Observations.
Pictured: Sign in front of office of ABE Consulting on Hog Mountain Road.