Eatonton City Council held its second of two regularly scheduled monthly meetings Monday night. Mayor John Reid led the meeting, which saw six council members present and Ward 4 Councilmember Teresa Doster absent.
First, the council approved rezoning a property at 114 Oconee St. from commercial (C2) to residential (R2) in order to restore the building there as a home. Next, they approved a parade permit to allow horse-drawn carriage rides through downtown Eatonton for the evening of Dec. 5 as part of Eatonton Main Street’s Thursday night Christmas shopping event.
Then the council heard City Administrator Gary Sanders explain the city received just one response to its Nov. 5 request for bids on a major stormwater-sewer project at Eatonton’s North Maple-East Marion intersection.
“You have a recommendation from the engineer … to award the contract to Peach State Construction Company in the amount of $2.879 million. This is a combination of water and sewer work and city work,” Sanders told the council. “The city’s component of that is $1.76 million, and the water part of that is $1.119 million. So again, $2.879 million.”
Based on positive experiences with Peach State Construction on prior projects, Sanders recommended the council accept the bid and pointed out that the project and its funding would satisfy the city’s obligation to commit its balance of funds made available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, otherwise known as COVID-19 funds, that have to be committed by the end of this year and projects completed by Dec. 31, 2026.
Again, the proposed contract received quick, unanimous approval from the council. Still, Sanders later clarified to The Eatonton Messenger that despite receiving no competitive bids, he had five plan holders look into the project. Still, only Peach State Construction put forth an offer to do the work.
“I always prefer to have at least two or three bids, but in the end, since it was a company we’ve used before, we found it to be very fair, and they do good work,” Sanders said. “So, I’m not overly concerned about not having multiple bids, but yes, any municipality or county would benefit from having multiple bids, if for nothing more than just to confirm that you do have the lowest price.”
Sanders stressed, too, that if he and his staff felt the received bid was exorbitant, he would not have recommended approval to the council.
“If it was way outside of our internal cost scoping, then we wouldn’t award it just to award it. But we certainly found that to be a reasonable bid,” Sanders said. “And yes, it is beneficial to meet the December 31st deadline, but again, I feel that it’s a fair bid price.”
Once all contracts are signed, Sanders said he expects work to be well underway by springtime.
He pointed out the roads leading away from the North Maple-East Marion intersection – “These particular little, I call them ‘back road shortcuts’ – they’re in need of work,” he said.
Sanders outlined the scope of the work will start on Maple Avenue near the train trestle crossing East Marion Street.
“All that roadway drainage, all that’s going to be redone, one block down East Marion, one block up North Maple,” he described. “So, it’s basically two city blocks of drainage improvement, replacement curb and gutter drop inlets and resurfacing. So yeah, it is not just a single intersection. It’s that entire section of roadway in both directions.
“So, it’s roadway, but it’s also sewer. You can see the manholes sinking around there. It was a dual-purpose project, so we had to get everybody moving in the same direction,” Sanders added. “It’s been years since we’ve recognized the need to improve this area, and ARPA was just a nice fit for funding. Then, the Water Authority was able to find the capacity to deliver on their side. So, it just worked out. But this has been a long-identified infrastructure improvement.”