ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

At a Special Town Board Meeting on July 1st, the Board hired Jason and Bryce Otte of Otte Excavating to be the new Road Contractors.

It seems Mark Henry of Henry's Excavating had declined to renew his contract after all, even though he was granted the job at the last regular Board meeting.  Mark had submitted the lowest quote among the three applicants.

It should be noted that, when dealing in quotes as opposed to bids, the Board is not bound by law to take the lowest responsible bidder.  Quotes can be used (only at certain money amounts) to allow greater flexibility and even negotiation among the applicants and the Board.  This flexibility has been an item of some divided discussion among Supervisors in the past.  Some prefer the quote; some the bid.  Once the amount of the contract rises to, I believe, $100,000, a bid must be used.

Both Ottes and Henry have been Road Contractors before for the Township.  Commissioner Charles "Butch" Hansen was the third entity to submit a quote.  It was stated at the meetings that Hansen did not own the equipment needed to do the job, but that he could procure it quickly if given the work. The Hansen quote was the highest rate per hour, based on a formula used by the Board since Jeff Otto, former Chair and Road Supervisor, devised it a few years ago. The formula weights the different items such as road grading vs. fallen tree removal by the percentage of the total job they constitute in a typical year. This gives a more realistic assessment for comparison, since the road bid or quote involves rates for a number of items, not just grading and snow plowing.

Since Henry bowed out, the Board elected to then consider the other two of the three original quotes submitted.  This happened at the Special Meeting and was posted as an agenda item.


As an attendee at the meeting, I felt the discussion of the "merits" of certain contractors was a little questionable, at best.  However, Chair Kenny Miller quoted the Minnesota Association of Townships Town Government Manual and reigned in what I also considered improper discussion based on what Supervisor Brian Budenski labeled and also objected to as "hearsay."  The Board must be very careful to follow law when considering such money matters. To do otherwise would be to open the Township to possible lawsuits.


One item of note that should be of interest to residents is the grading schedule.  This schedule was also

drawn up some years ago and has been attached to the road contract.  The schedule gives frequency of grading for our different roads based on their traffic levels.  At times, it has been alleged, that Road Contractors were held to strict adherence to the schedule, regardless of conditions such as whether the road was wet or dry, dust coated or not.  If a road is graded when dry, it has been described as "pushing marbles across the road," a process whereby the fines in the gravel can be blown away and lost and additional gravel application could be required.

If a road is dust coated, the goal would be to disturb the dust coating as little as possible and, if necessary, only when damp, so as not to greatly reduce its effectiveness.  This has been approached differently by various Road Supervisors.








The present philosophy stated at the meeting is that the grading schedule is a suggestion, the implementation of which will be directed by the Road Supervisors, currently Supervisors Behrendt and Budenski.  How it will be implemented will be at their discretion and based in part on road and weather conditions.  The
optimum is to keep the roads in the best shape possible at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers, not always an easy feat to accomplish, weather being what it is here. Since roads represent the biggest chunk of the Township budget by far, what happens with them is of direct impact to you as taxpayer and not just as traveler.

Keep in mind that any comments on the roads are to be directed to the current Road Supervisors, not past ones or the Road Contractors. The current Road Supervisors are the persons involved in overseeing the budget in this arena. Budenski's and Behrendt's numbers as found on the website are:

Cory Behrendt  952-985-5411    
Brian Budenski 952-292-6028