Work should begin on Glenwood Street this summer.

Warren City Council members recently held a special meeting to award the bid for the project. Jeff Zavinski, assistant to the city’s public works director, told council members the $589,838 project will be paid for with Community Development Block Grant street road improvement money awarded between 2021 and 2023. The low bid was from Dirt Works Excavating LLC, but Zavinski and city engineer Chad Yurisic said there were irregularities in the company’s bid that prompted city officials to reject the bid.

“In your packet I had provided a memo to the city summarizing my review of the bids and, as noted, there were a few irregularities noted in that bid,” Yurisic said. “There were two mathematical errors. One was a minor error but one was a fairly significant error of over $11,000. And, also, after Dirt Works was notified that they were the apparent low bidder they did not provide the supporting information requested within the period of time allotted in the contract. I did speak to them on the phone afterwards and asked them if they had experience doing similar type projects, and their response was no.”

The next lowest bidder was IA Construction Inc., a company the city has worked with in the past. Both Councilwoman Danielle Flasher and Mayor Dave Wortman vouched for IA Construction when asked by Councilman John Barbera if city officials were more comfortable with IA Construction after the issues raised when investigating the bid by Dirt Worx.

“I would say that IA is a very reputable, high quality road contractor, among other things,” Wortman said. “They do good work, good reputation.”

Once the contractor was lined up, Wortman said it was necessary to call the special meeting so that work could begin this year rather than missing out on the summer construction season. Waiting until the council’s May 19 meeting could have put the road project in jeopardy for this year.

“The service and just the background research needed to validate Dirt Works in particular and then follow up with IA, we want to make sure from a timing perspective that we get on a construction calendar to do this work this summer,” Wortman said. “So again, I appreciate everybody being responsive to this. Calendars fill up very quickly this time of the year, as you know.”