Tit-for-tat leads to a bit of a snit
Staff writer
Tempers briefly flared during a nearly 20-minute discussion Monday of whether county and city of Peabody crews might be able to exchange work on two unrelated projects.
The city and county jointly own a quarter-mile stretch of Old Mill Rd. south of Peabody’s new Dollar General store at US-50.
The rock road needs to be rebuilt, road and bridge supervisor Jesse Hamm said.
“It’s a mud pit down through there,” commissioner Randy Dallke said.
At the same time, the county owns seven lots within Peabody but has not been mowing them.
Until the county is able to award a contract, which it is seeking bids for, to mow the properties, the city has been mowing them at $200 apiece.
Hamm said Peabody streets superintendent Ronnie Harms came to him with a plan:
If the county would agree to rebuild the road, picking up Peabody’s share of the cost, which probably total $3,052.45, the city would mow the lots for free.
Chairman Dianne Novak was concerned, however.
“I don’t really like blending stuff like this,” she said. “Somebody always gets the shaft. I’m not saying I’m not in favor of fixing the road. I’m not in favor of doing it in this fashion until I get all the numbers.”
Commissioner Randy Dallke responded: “Bottom line is, they’ve got the mowers. They’ve got the time to mow. We’ve got the equipment to build the road. We work with our cities in this regard. We always have.”
Novak reiterated that she wanted to know details about total cost and how long the city and county would agree to mow and to maintain the road.
At one point, she mentioned that she didn’t know the condition of the road.
Dallke shot back: “Is my word not good enough? I said it needs to be done.”
Novak responded: “No, I’m sorry. You’re just one of three, sir.”
In the end, commissioners took no action. Hamm plans to add rock and blade the road as part of normal maintenance pending further research.
In other business Monday, commissioners voted to:
- Accept an out-of-county bid for office paper that was 1.8 percent lower than a bid from the only in-county bidder, Baker Brothers of Hillsboro.
- Accept a bid from the tire manufacturer for a particular brand of skid-steer tires for the waste transfer station. The bid was 14.1 percent below that of the only other bidder, Rod’s Tires of Hillsboro, which retails the manufacturer’s brand.
- Accept a fuel bid from Epp’s Service, based out of the county in Elbing, that was 1.1 percent lower than a bid from Hillsboro-based Cooperative Grain and Supply.
“I’m finding out that when we take bids like this, I think we can’t disenfranchise other bidders by going with the local bidder,” Novak said. “It’s a state law or statute or something.”
- Schedule a hearing on abandoning a 520-foot section of a dead end road near 803 Remington Rd. to the permit property owners Jeffrey and Christina Tracy to enlarge a failing septic discharge field.