Como board awards wastewater plant bid

By John Howell
At their December 13 meeting, Como aldermen voted to allow Ray Jackson to replace two mobile homes with new mobile homes. Jackson told town officials that one had burned and the other was old and needed to be replaced with a newer model.
“I don’t see any problem with it if there was one there,” Hill said. “New land that hasn’t ever had a trailer on it, you can’t put one there;
• Aldermen voted 4 to 1 to accept the bid recommendation of Cook Coggin Engineers that awards rehabilitation work on Como’s wastewater treatment plant to Hemphill Construction. Hemphill Construction, Inc. submitted a low bid of $481,942 for the work.
“However, due to the lack of funding to award the project in full, we recommend awarding the project to Hemphill …, based on deducting … items of work,” attorney Griffin stated, reading from Cook Coggins letter of recommendation.
Removing a concrete chlorine contact chamber from the bid items reduced the cost to $344,661 which was within the Community Development Block Grant amount.
The Cook Coggin letter also stated that the recommendation had been made in consultation with the town’s certified water operator, K. T. Newman.
Alderwoman Teresa Dishmon made the motion to accept the recommendation, seconded by Alderwoman Tonia Heard. Alderman John Walton and Alderwoman Ruby Higgenbottom added their “aye” vote.
After looking over the bid and letter of recommendation, Alderwoman Rachel Powell voted “nay.”
“I just don’t know about all that stuff,” Powell said.
• Powell also voted “nay” on approving town claims for the month, questioning a $4,600 bill from Birge Brothers.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“The same thing he’s always been doing all this time, fixing water leaks here in town. He’s fixing to run a gas line to the fire department.”
“It keeps getting higher and higher,” Powell said.
“It’s really cheap,” the mayor replied.
After further discussion, aldermen voted 4 to 1 to approve claims totaling $54,982.20.