Following a parks and recreation committee report on the status of the Milburn splash pad, councillor Mary Lloyd raised concern because the project has been deferred again.
In the report, it was noted only one tender was received. At that point, the options were to either open the bid, making the township obligated to accept the bid, provided it was within budget.
The second option was to not open the bid and make revisions to the project to ensure more than one bid would be submitted.
The committee opted to return the bid unopened and felt it was the best decision on behalf of the township.
In the meantime, managing director of community services Brian Detzler and staffer Matt Tucker made modifications to the request for proposal.
Those deadline for those tenders would be early August.
Changes were made, including reducing the surface are from 530 square metres to a range of 325 to 375.
Same features
Detzler said, “We can still get the same play feature values, just no dead space now. The project should be completed by mid October. Original bid was due to be completed by end of September.”
The splash pad will officially open in the spring of 2014.
However Lloyd questioned why the project was being put off simply because companies were not responding to tendering. She asked why the project could not continue even if there was only one bid.
Detzler agreed the single bid could have been accepted. “But we felt it would be more responsible to re-tender because we wanted more competition.”
Lloyd said this is the second year this has happened. It was clarified the project which did not move ahead last year was a play structure.
Lloyd said residents of the neighbourhood are frustrated and they want to see the project completed.
“While we want the process to be competitive, we can’t force companies to submit quotations,” said Lloyd.
Detzler believed the re-tendering would only delay things by a month.
