Lacey awards construction contract after council reviews possible legal fallout
Lacey City Council on Thursday voted to award a $7.7 million construction contract for a second phase of work on sewer and water hookups at Capitol City Golf Club Estates.
But before they did, they huddled in executive session to weigh legal concerns.
The council and staff did not discuss the potential litigation during the regular meeting, and the public was not privy to their executive session discussion, but the matter at hand was spelled out in the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.
When the city opened bids for the second phase sewer and water line work at the golf course community — a community in unincorporated Thurston County that has agreed to be annexed in exchange for sewer hookups — the original low bidder was PAMF Excavating of Maple Valley. However, the business did not sign the bid bond, so the city rejected the bid, according to agenda materials.
“The failure to furnish a signed bid bond makes the bid bond unenforceable, which would allow the apparent low bidder to elect not to enter into a contract without the risk of forfeiting the bid bond,” the agenda reads.
So after rejecting the PAMF bid, the council had the option of rejecting all bids or awarding the contract to the next lowest bidder. They emerged from executive session to award the $7.7 million contract to Active Construction of Puyallup.
Active has worked with the city before. They completed the first phase of widening College Street and adding a new roundabout, and it repaved Carpenter Road between Pacific Avenue and Martin Way.
This story was originally published March 19, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
