Idaho Mountain Express: Decision near on Woodside contract

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Decision near on Woodside contract

Hailey could award high-dollar project to Knife River Corp.

By TONY EVANS
Express Staff Writer

State law will likely require that the city of Hailey contract with Knife River Corp. to redevelop about 2.5 miles of Woodside Boulevard this summer, despite some objections from citizens.

Hailey City Council members said as much Monday night, despite their knowledge of widespread complaints about the company's work on resurfacing state Highway 75 between Hailey and Ketchum last summer.

Knife River is headquartered in Bismarck, N.D., where the company manages numerous highway construction projects in 13 Western states. The company's bid of $4.2 million for the project beat out that of several other companies, including Idaho Sand and Gravel ($4.3 million) and C&A Paving ($4.6 million).

The city is now following standard procedure by evaluating the three lowest bids in cooperation with the Federal Highways Administration before officially awarding the contract, said Hailey Public Works Director Tom Hellen at a council meeting Monday.

Knife River ran behind on two highway projects in Blaine County last year, including the work on Highway 75 between Hailey and Ketchum. Work on that section of the highway did not begin until late summer.
<
Once the project was under way, motorists sent numerous complaints to the Idaho Transportation Department, Blaine County officials and the Idaho Mountain Express. The complaints included poor visibility in late-night construction zones, flaggers who didn't seem to know how to give proper hand signals, scraped undercarriages from construction zone bumps, battered vehicle shocks, paving during inclement weather and excessive traffic delays.

Installation of a protective seal-coat on the highway was delayed until summer 2012.

Mayor Fritz Haemmerle said he was aware of the complaints about Knife River's performance but that the city is required by state law to contract with it if it provided the lowest bid for the project.

"We cannot take that [criticism of Knife River] into account," he said.

City Clerk Heather Dawson said a decision on the contract award will be made within 15 days.

In other Hailey news:

( The Marijuana Oversight Committee was eliminated by a unanimous vote of the City Council.

( The council will discuss a permanent levy override of $40 per $100,000 of property valuation and the results of a community survey at its meeting on Monday, March 12.

Tony Evans: tevans@mtexpress.com

acheter viagra
comprar viagra
buy viagra

About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged: