Clay looks at job bids for new fire department generator

by MATT HUGHES

J-E News Editor

Clay city council members voted to award a bid on Tuesday night, only to call an emergency session only moments following the conclusion of their meeting to reverse their decision.

The bid in question is for the purchase and installation of a generator at the city’s new fire station. Only two companies bid on the project, T&D Solutions based in Clay and Timmon’s Electric Company Inc. from Morganfield.

KRS 45A.365 says that bids must be awarded to “either the lowest bidder or the bidder submitting the lowest evaluated bid price.” T&D bid the job for $29,961 while Timmons bid $28,848. That’s where the confusion started.

After reviewing the bids, it appeared to council members that the one from Timmons was incomplete. The bid was only one page, and did not include specifications for the generator.

The council voted unanimously to award the bid to T&D Solutions, the more expensive bidder, due to the missing information.

Following the meeting several city employees were reviewing the bid and noticed an issue that concerned them. 

“Paul Stone was reading the bid and noticed that it says that the gas meter and connection was to be provided by ‘other’,” said Mayor Rick Householder. “The other bid clearly covers both gas and electric. But when we got to looking at it we noticed that where it says specs attached, it was only talking about the generator.”

The generator specifications were included in the city’s original advertisement to bid, meaning that the missing pages would have just been the specs that the city had already approved.

Council members voted to reverse their original decision, and then tabled awarding the bid until they could get clarification from both companies on what the bids actually included.

In other business, electrical inspector Mike Villines appeared before the council to request the city contract with him to be an eligible inspector in Clay.

“The state has changed the law and mandated that counties and cities have a program for electrical inspectors,” Villines said. “I’ve been doing electrical inspections in Clay for twenty years, but for me to be able to continue to have a certificate of electrical inspection, I have to send them a signed affidavit with the city.”

“Why are we even involved in this?” asked Mayor Rick Householder.

“I have a contract with the county signed by Judge Executive Jim Townsend, but because you don’t have a local interim agreement with the county, you have to do this,” Villines said.

“But why would I even be involved?” asked Householder.

According to Villines, the new state mandate will require all inspectors to have agreements with the local government. If there are no such agreements, then all electrical inspections would have to be carried out by a state appointed inspector. That could leave home and business owners waiting days and even weeks to get their work inspected.

Villines told the council that the state had notified the Judge Executives and electrical inspectors about the change, but they had not notified city governments.

The council decided to table any decision on the issue until they could find more information.

Fire Cheif Jeremy Moore informed the council that work at the fire station was almost complete. The floors had been stripped and refinished, which was one of the major hold ups.