The Struggles with Ruggles

[XLFD]

Tonight, Scottville is likely to do what Ludington couldn't do back in March.  They will select the low bidder in a competitive bid process for sidewalks.  The project itself in Scottville isn't that ambitious, it will just put in a sidewalk on the south side of West Maple Street between Gay and Reinberg Avenue.   The Google map  below shows that the area is currently without a sidewalk on the south side of the street.

"Larsen's is the low qualified contractor and I am confident they will do a good job, said Scottville Interim City Manager Steve Brock.  Incentive for the installation appears to come from the Scottville (MCC) school district, who contributed $4000 in order to get it done even though no school property is adjacent to the build.  The lower elementary, however, is directly across Gay Street, and the stretch is well-used by those walking to school or between schools, as the upper elementary and middle school are just to the west up Maple Street.  

Mr. Brock has been kind enough to expedite the three bids received over to my E-mail inbox.  Here is the low bid made by Larsen's:

And here is the second lowest bid made by Ruggles & Son

As you can see, the totals, involving many of the usual costs for putting in sidewalk, differ by $1117 or by nearly 10%.  Notice the differences, Ruggles includes a cost for removal & replacement of sidewalk, where there is none to remove, of $9415, or exactly $7 per lineal foot.  This would be the same rate they charge the City of Ludington for removal and replacement of a sidewalk:

Had Spuller Concrete submitted their bid to Scottville and not charge for 'removal of a non-existing sidewalk', their consistent bid may have been $4.25 per lineal foot, or $5716.25, a savings of over $3600 just for installation on this one project.  

But Ludington City Council, in their finite wisdom, decided to ignore the city's charter and its sage advice to use competitive bidding in practice, instead giving sizable weight to some criticism about timeliness that led to Spuller's much lower bid being ignored so that an out-of-county contractor could step in at nearly 20% more. 

I recall the major knock used by the City's committee in recommending this move was that Spuller had a hard time finishing their 84 projects last year.  Undoubtedly, now that they have the same sidewalk budget, Ruggles will be more easier able to complete their 65 projects or so before the money runs out in July.  Maybe Spuller would have worked into November, but they could have still got nearly 20 more sidewalk projects done this year had they done the right thing, while homeowners would see much lower numbers for their share. 

Or maybe a whole lot more savings.  Here is the City of Ludington's expenses for sidewalks reported in the month of May this year:

Twenty-one projects nearly $47,000 in total or an average of roughly $2300 per job.  That average doesn't change much either way when you pare off the extremely high and low values.  Spuller Concrete did 84 projects last year for $109,000 (charged to the city), or an average of under $1300 per job.  

This seems to indicate that the City of Ludington will on average spend $1000 more per sidewalk project (or 75% more than last year), meaning that each person who has a new sidewalk installed will also pay an extra grand.   All because our city councilors wanted to send a message to Spuller Concrete-- and that message appears to be that you can bid lowest and still be ignored by a pound-foolish council.

At least Scottville should do the right thing and ignore Ruggles & Sons' second lowest bid.

[shinblind]

Were any of Spuller sidewalk construction delays attributable to the street reconstruction project last year?  

Were any delays weather related?

Any data on the percentage of sidewalks that were delayed and by how many days?

Has any thought been given that costing more with a fixed budget means less construction hence less delays?

[XLFD]

I don't have all the answers, but here is what has been in the dialog of the city's committees and in some of the records I have FOIAed and put in previous posts.  In 2018, Spuller Concrete's Ludington crew was doing a major paving project out at the Ludington State Park which required their resources to be allocated there for over a month.  Shortly after that in early July, Spuller's younger brother died in a moped accident, so there may have been a period of grieving after that which could have led to more delays.  One would have to believe that delays in the street construction on Court, PM, Resseguie, etc. also may have proven a factor if Spuller was coordinating with that contractor.  

Additionally, the City measured 'delay' time by the time Spuller would report starting the project until the time he billed the City for finishing them.  Depending on how notifying cycles and billing cycles went, this could make a project that took a couple of days to start and complete seem to take a month or more to finish.  Neither Spuller nor the DPW have a reputation for great recordkeeping skills, that's not their main job.

The record shows a couple of minor complaints about quality over 2017 and 2018, and if I remember right, those were in 2017 and never mentioned when Spuller was approved in 2018 and did effectively the same amount of projects.  The data does not lead a reasonable person to the conclusion that Spuller's 2019 much lower bid deserved to be ignored.

[Willy]

Good article X. Although I can appreciate the school districts desire and goodwill to put money into this project, in my opinion, it's not the right thing to do. If I were a property owner outside the City or even inside, I would not want my school taxes paying for this. It is the City's responsibility. Using money raised [extorted] for education should only be used for educational purposes.  What other City maintenance will the school taxes be used for in the future? This sets a bad precedent and should be stopped immediately.

[XLFD]

That's another excellent topic for discussion, to be sure.  I hope to do some more research into this.

It is a good thing to get sidewalks on both sides of the streets in school zones, but the process and funding needs to be fair to everyone.