Commissioners accept bids for OSU Extension office, New Market Road paving project

Following recent bid openings, Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades awarded two projects totaling over $1 million each during their Wednesday, July 19 meeting.

A road paving contract for the Highland County Engineer’s Office was awarded to Miller-Mason Paving, while commissioners accepted multiple bids for the proposed new Ohio State University Extension office at the Highland County Fairgrounds after the project was rebid.

Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve a resolution awarding the HIG CR 5-C New Market Road reconstruction and resurfacing bid to Miller-Mason Paving Co., with the total amount of the award being $1,121,627.20. Miller-Mason was the low bidder of the four packets received by the county June 7.

According to Highland County Engineer Chris Fauber, the project is for a section of New Market Road “from [U.S.] 62 west toward East Danville,” and the bid came in under their estimate of $1.3 million.

After taking a very brief recess while waiting for the official award letter from the WDC Group (the architecture firm overseeing the program), commissioners voted 3-0 to award the new OSU Extension building project in the amount of $1,113,599.

That bid award comes just two days after a special meeting for the project’s second bid opening.

Commissioners previously conducted a bid opening June 28. At the time of the first bid opening, the project estimate was $819,870, with the WDC Group recommending commissioners reject all bids due to being more than 10 percent over the project estimate. The county received bids from the same four contractors Monday, July 17, for which the estimate was increased to $997,000.

As outlined by the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funding coordinator Nicole Oberrecht, the resolution for the $1,113,599 project included awarding general work and labor to Tag Williams, Inc. in the amount of $771,249; mechanical ($100,800) and plumbing ($112,950) to Weller’s Plumbing and Heating; electrical to CT Electric, in the amount of $92,000; and an alternate bid ($36,600) for a standing seam metal roof to Tag Williams, Inc.

“In the recommendation letter, [the WDC Group] stated that they had positive experiences on past projects with all three of these contractors, and so they recommend awarding it to them,” Oberrecht said.

Discussions for the proposed project have been ongoing for nearly a year, as commissioners voted in August 2022 to hire an architecture firm, the WDC Group, to explore possible options for the office relocation.

The Extension office is currently located in the Highland County Administration Building. According to Daniels, both spacing and parking issues at the administration building are factors in looking into the possible move, based on talks with Extension staff.

In other discussion:

• Britton said that McCarty Associates LLC architect Doug Karnes is still reviewing proposals for a third county project, as a bid opening for the proposed new county records storage building was held July 12.

“I told him that we wanted to make sure that we vetted this pretty well,” Britton said.

Three bids were submitted through BidExpress, including: Alpha Construction Inc., $2,797,000; Miles-McClellan Construction, $3,350,000; and Elford Inc., $3,799,000.

“This is a pretty large expenditure, and I think it behooves us and the taxpayers to do a tremendous amount of due diligence on [the contractors’] past performance and checking references and so forth,” Daniels said.

Plans for that project have been underway for more than a year, as commissioners voted in May 2022 to purchase a 0.236 acre lot on Beech Street in Hillsboro for construction of the property, which will be used to alleviate some of the storage issues seen in all county buildings. They also voted in the same month to enter the contract with McCarty Associates, LLC for engineering and architecture design services.

• Commissioners discussed, but did not approve, quotes from Superior Alarm LLC for security systems at the new Highland County Dog Pound.

According to commission clerk Mary Remsing, Superior Alarm provided a quote for security cameras, which totaled $7,584.91, and a second quote that included allowing “the doors to have a card entrance.

“The quote for the doors, I believe, was just a guess,” Remsing told commissioners. “He didn't get a cost estimate back from one of his suppliers, but he wanted to send us his best guess.”

All three commissioners indicated that they wanted a more definite estimate for the door system, and a quote from another company, before taking action.

“One of the things that we've talked about is the card swipe getting in, since we've got members of the Friends group [Friends of the Highland County Dog Pound] going in and out to take care of dogs,” Daniels said. “I would want to see a combined bid from Superior, if he can track down a good number on that, because I think that's an important component of this.”

• Highland County Auditor Alex Butler presented a copy of the latest permissive sales tax receipts, with the county nearing $5.4 million in receipts so far in 2023.

Although the $767,858.19 total for July 2023 is a decrease from the previous month ($790,560.82), it is an increase of $14,297.76 from July 2022.

“It’s consistent with the trend we've seen the last couple of years as far as month over month,” Butler said.

Year to date, the county’s totals are $5,393,881.28, which is still ahead of the 2022 totals through the same month ($5,285,849.10) in what was a record year for permissive sales tax receipts.

• Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve two separate Ohio Department of Commerce temporary liquor license requests for the Highland County Fair, with one for Sept. 1-5 and the other for Sept. 6-10.

• Also on Wednesday, commissioners held budget hearings with several department heads, as the Board of Elections, Juvenile/Probate Court, Coroner and OSU Extension offices were on the agenda throughout the morning and afternoon.