PHILLIPSTON — The contract to move forward with the town hall accessibility project was awarded to Kurtz, Inc. of Westfield, by the selectboard Wednesday night.
Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Flynn announced results of last week’s bid opening prior to the vote of the board.
“We received four bids for the elevator project – the accessibility project,” said Flynn. “The low bid was from Kurtz, Incorporated, which was within the range we were looking at for the estimates. It’s been recommended that we make the award, by our architect. They were the previous low bidder when we opened bids and they are also the people who won the award for Royalston’s project. They seem to be go-getters. They’re starting Royalston’s project on Monday.”
Kurtz’ bid to undertake the project was $318,496, about $19,000 less than the next-lowest bidder, Construction Dynamics of Clinton, which entered a bid of $337,000. Inglewood Development of Longmeadow bid the project at $349,000, and the high bid – $369,000 – came from Fitchburg’s Elite Construction and Design.
The awarding of the bid to Kurtz comes following a series of fits and starts in the spending of just over $831,000 in FY15 Community Development Block Grant funds provided to the towns of Phillipston and Royalston. The two communities submitted a joint CDBG application to fund the installation of elevators at each of their town halls. However, following an initial round of bid openings, it became apparent the grant monies would not be enough to fund both projects.
In the meantime, the communities were under increasing pressure from the state Dept. of Housing and Community Development to either spend the funding or lose it.
At a joint meeting of the Phillipston and Royalston select boards in early January, the architect on the project, Paul Lieneck of the Ashby firm Haynes, Lieneck and Smith, proposed scaling back the Phillipston project from the installation of an elevator to instead installing a wheelchair lift. Lieneck explained the change would still make Phillipston town hall handicap accessible, while at the same time reducing the cost of the project by as much as $225,000.
The proposed change required Phillipston selectmen to hold a public hearing to officially amend the CDBG grant application before soliciting bids for the work. That hearing was held on January 16.
During the joint meeting on Jan. 2, Royalston select board members voted to give Kurtz the contract to install an elevator at that community’s town hall for $889,000. A combination of grant monies and other funds will be to pay for the project.
In other action Wednesday night, the selectmen voted with little comment to refer an Open Meeting Law complaint from Phillipston resident Peter Stanley to the town’s attorney. The complaint was filed last week with the office of state Attorney General Maura Healey.
In it, Stanley alleges that a selectboard meeting on Jan. 30 was held in violation of the state Open Meeting Law because the agenda had not been posted and time-stamped 48 hours or more before the meeting as required by law. Stanley further states in his complaint that he was “immediately dismissed” when he asked Flynn and the board if they intended to proceed with an improperly posted meeting.
He said he received “an extremely unprofessional and sarcastic response, including exaggerated head-shaking and eye-rolling from the Board’s Assistant Chair and curt instructions from the CAO to see the Town Clerk if I had questions.”
Stanley also said his complaint to the AG’s office was that selectmen read a prepared statement regarding ongoing issues at the town’s fire department, even though it had not been included on the posted agenda. He further claimed that residents at the meeting were “screamed at” when they raised concerns about the appointment of a new firefighter.
The town has two weeks to officially respond to Stanley’s complaint.