Logo courtesy of the City of Marysville

MARYSVILLE, CA (MPG) – The Marysville City Council rejected bids last week for two City Hall improvement projects after determining the lowest proposals contained deficiencies that would have forced the city to spend significantly more money to award the contracts.

The unanimous action sends both the City Hall restroom remodel and City Hall window replacement projects back out to bid after staff revises the bid documents to provide clearer instructions to contractors.

City Manager Jim Schaad said the restroom remodel attracted seven bids ranging from about $240,000 to $441,500. The five lowest proposals contained problems including incomplete bid forms, missing contractor qualification documents, incomplete customer references, failure to acknowledge updates to the bid documents, and incomplete pricing information.

"The bidders did not understand fully the requirements for the bids," Schaad said.

Because the lowest bids were nonresponsive, the city would have had to award the restroom project to the next qualified bidder at roughly $145,000 more than the apparent low bid.

"I don't think it's in the city's best interest to pay that additional cost," Schaad said.

The council instead directed staff to revise the bid documents and seek new proposals.

The council took the same action on the City Hall window replacement, retrofit and flashing project after determining the lowest proposal also failed to meet the bid requirements. The next responsive bid was about $110,000 higher than the apparent low bid, prompting the council to reject all bids and rebid the project.

The projects involve Marysville's downtown City Hall complex, where the restroom remodel will modernize the men's and women's restrooms with ADA-compliant fixtures, new partitions, lighting, plumbing fixtures and finishes. The window project includes replacing aging windows at City Hall and the Police Department with energy-efficient retrofit units while retaining the existing exterior frames.

One council member recused himself from the discussion and vote on the window replacement project because his son was among the bidders. Before approving the resolution, council members confirmed that contractors who submitted bids during the initial solicitation will be eligible to participate when the projects are rebid, giving all interested firms another opportunity to compete under the revised bid requirements.