The village board took two major steps forward on local issues last week when it decided to award a public bid in order to purchase new equipment for the Skaneateles Fire Department, and then announced that work upgrading the Prentiss Drive footpath, which was running behind schedule, is underway.
The two announcements were made at a village operations meeting on Oct. 18, after both issues were taking longer than expected to resolve.
The purchase of 30 new air packs — portable breathing apparatus — for the SFD has been ongoing for about one month. The board advertised for public bids in early September and by the Sept. 13 meeting had received two bids: $138,799 by Dival Safety Equipment and $139,880 by Jerome Fire Equipment. Because the two bids were for two different air pack systems, the board stated it would most likely take the full 45 days allowed by law to coordinate with the fire department and decide on the most appropriate bid to accept.
At an Oct. 2 operations meeting, the board then decided to wait to see what if it was possible to use the Onondaga County Purchasing Department to purchase the air packs at what could have been a lower price. It was subsequently determined, however, that the equipment available through the county was not the accurate specifications for what the village planned to buy.
“There has been considerable work done on this … behind the scenes,” said Mayor Marty Hubbard at the Oct. 18 meeting, referring to the county purchasing possibility. “It’s fair to say we have exhausted those remedies.”
The board therefore had to make a decision on whether to accept one of the two bids previously received. Although Dival Safety’s bid was $1,081 lower than that made by Jerome Fire, Dival did not include a trade-in offer for the SFD’s 32 used air pack units, as was required by the bidding guidelines. Jerome’s bid included a trade-in offer of $4,999, which made their overall bid $134,881.
The board decided to award the bid to Jerome Fire Equipment, however, they have asked the company to grant a 30-day extension to the deal because the fire department is currently waiting to hear if it will receive a federal grant for money to be used toward the purchase. The board cannot award the bid prior to the grant being received, Hubbard said.
“I’m hopeful that we’ll hear something pretty soon” about the grant, said Fire Chief Eric Sell.
The board voted unanimously to extend the bidding process to Dec. 1 in anticipation of receiving a response about the grant.
Hubbard also announced at the meeting that work to upgrade the Prentiss Drive pedestrian path, which has been delayed due to the heavy workload, small staff and month-long absence of a member of the Department of Public Works, got underway that day, Oct. 18.
The village’s new Bobcat mini excavator was on site at the path at the end of the day last Thursday, and had already worked on about 30 feet of the path.
“I’m happy to say our DPW guys stepped up to do the work,” Hubbard said.
The pedestrian pathway, which connects the Prentiss Drive neighborhood to West Lake Street, became a hot-button issue last spring after the village’s decision to restore the partly marshy path led to arguments over whether to pave it as a sidewalk or keep it as crushed gravel. The crushed stone and gravel walkway has been there more than 20 years, but starting about five years ago, after an electric line was installed underground, the path has become in spots a marshy collection of mud and water in warm weather.
What started as a disagreement between the village and the residents became a legal issue when residents hired a lawyer to represent their cause. After a heated public hearing on the issue on April 26, the village board decided not to pave the path but restore the crushed gravel appearance.
Also at the meeting, the board voted unanimously to create an official policy ending the decades-long informal policy of waiving the $150 grave opening fee at Lakeview Cemetery for DPW employees.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Skaneateles Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
