Richland County's summer paving program now uncertain

Richland County may not have a highway pavement restoration program this summer. County commissioners voted for the second time on Thursday to reject the lone bid submitted for chip and seal work on about 20 miles of county roads.

Commissioners first advertised for chip and seal bids in May but rejected the bids submitted by two firms because they both were more than 10% over the county engineer’s $523,950 estimate. The board agreed to re-advertise the program after the mileage was reduced slightly and the engineer’s estimate was adjusted to $522,610 to reflect the change.

County Engineer Adam Gove told the board Thursday that the bid submitted the second time around — $609,295 from Earthworm Construction of Iberia — was 16.5% over estimate. Earthworm submitted the lower of the two bids the first time, at $587,561.

“It looked like the price for the stone went up and that’s probably the result of trucking and manufacturing,” Gove said. “The emulsion also went up a little bit. It’s a petroleum-based product.”

Gove said he is going to re-evaluate the number of roads to be done for the chip and seal program, noting that it is getting late in the paving bid season to advertise for a third time. If he decides to forego the program this year, he said the roads will be patched to prevent the potholes from getting too far along.

Commissioners did award a contract to Morton Salt of Cleveland for up to 11,915 tons of winter road salt at a cost of $63.77 per ton. The figure includes allocations for six municipalities and 16 of the county’s 18 townships.

Gove also told the board that the state salt bid came in at $52.79 per ton, although it included a separate fuel adjustment line item that increases the cost as fuel costs increase. He said the county is planning to buy 2,500 tons of salt through its contract with Morton and 2,500 through the state bid.

Storm damage and response reviewed

Commissioners also heard a report from county Emergency Management Agency Director Joe Petrycki on the effects of the derecho and tornado that tore though Richland County late Monday night. The presentation included a map he put together using MapQuest and information from the National Weather Service, a local damage assessment team and more than 400 photographs from a Sandusky County EMA drone team that surveyed the area.

Petrycki said the storm downed “hundreds” of trees and that there were still many that had not been removed as of Thursday morning. He said Richland County took a “very, very” hard hit from Monday’s storms with pockets of damage throughout the county, adding that officials are continuing to work on debris management.

Commissioner Darrell Banks said he received a number of calls from Bellville-area residents about trees down in the Clear Fork and concerns they could contribute to future flooding.

Petrycki told the board that tornado sirens were not set off because the National Weather Service did not issue a tornado warning. He said officials told him that events developed so fast that they had no lead time.

Petrycki also said it was “frustrating” to him that a tornado watch was not issued.

“In speaking with a representative from the National Weather Service, he said they have to try to balance the fine line of over alerting the public versus under alerting the public,” he said. “They don’t want to over alert everybody so much that people then turn the weather emergency alerts capabilities on their phones off.”

Petrycki also said internet connectivity issues may have prevented the county’s wireless emergency notification system (WENS) from getting the word out on weather conditions. Commissioners’ Chairman Tony Vero said the board will work with IT officials to provide “redundancy” and make sure that does not happen again.

Commissioner Cliff Mears reported that he had calls from county residents who could not send or receive cell phone calls and texts Monday night and that he had similar experiences. Petrycki said the problems may have been caused by the number of calls exceeding tower capacity.

Petrycki recognized a number of agencies — including OhioHealth, Avita Health Systems, First Call 211 and the local community emergency response team — for helping to staff the county emergency operations center. He said the local electric utilities did a good job of dealing with downed lines so crews could remove downed trees and re-open roads.

Commissioners later voted after an executive session to raise Petrycki’s salary to $31.44 per hour and the salary of EMA Administrator Sarah Potes to $20 per hour following her probationary period. Vero said both were very competent in handling this week’s activities and had been making less than the minimum for their positions under the county’s new wage scale.

In other business, commissioners accepted a $5,552.50 quote from Kastran Karpets in Ontario to replace carpeting in the county dog shelter with vinyl tile. They also voted to advertise for bids to replace the roofs at Fairhaven Hall, the Arts and Crafts Building and the Youth Hall at the county fairgrounds. The board agreed in April to allocate up to $691,000 in American Rescue Plan Act revenue replacement funds towards the project, which has an estimated cost of $699,000.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Commissioners reject latest chip and seal bid, hear EMA storm report