By Kevin Gaboury
The Crooked River Watershed Council's stream enhancement project on the Ochoco Lumber property in southeast Prineville has a few local contractors up in arms.
Not because of the work itself - this is scheduled to begin this month - but because of the watershed council's selection of an out-of-town bidder to complete the project.
Earlier this year, the watershed council invited 14 contractors across the Northwest to submit bids for the project, which will significantly enhance Ochoco Creek when complete. Seven total bids came back and four were local from local contractors - Woodward Co., SMAF Construction and Bartlett Excavation & Construction LLC, all of Prineville, and A.G. Ontko Contracting LLC of Powell Butte.
On June 18, the watershed council announced it had selected Partney Construction, Inc. of La Grande, Ore., to do the work.
Upon receiving this news, local contractors - who have faced their own struggles since the collapse of the Central Oregon housing market - demanded an explanation.
Brad Bartlett, owner of Bartlett Excavation, feels local companies were "unjustly bypassed" in the watershed council's decision.
"Bartlett Excavation used to have 15 employees two years ago, and now I'm down to three," he said. "If I don't get this job, it'll be down to one. That's major."
He added that his bid of $89,999 was the lowest of all seven bids. The next two highest bids came from A.G. Ontko Contracting ($114,250) and Woodward Co. ($116,975). Partney Construction submitted the fourth-highest bid for the project at $130,000.
According to a letter sent to contractors, the watershed council's decision was based on responsiveness to request for proposals (10 percent), contractor experience (40 percent), and total bid price (50 percent). As a not-for-profit organization, the CRWC is not required to comply with public bidding laws.
Normally, a public body such as a city is required to publicly announce a project, and any company is welcome to apply. Organizations like the CRWC on the other hand, can select a list of people to submit bids.
According to Crooked River Watershed Council Project Manager Devin Best, Partney Construction was the highest-qualified of all bidders.
"He specializes in stream restoration and his proposal and cost matched with the criteria stated in the request for proposals (RFP)," Best said. "It wasn't stated in the RFP that this was going to be based on people in Crook County and Central Oregon. The proposals were received from all over the state, and therefore we did not base our decision on locality."
According to Best, Partney has more than 20 years of experience and their specialty is in-stream work. The company's numerous projects in waterways around the state involved "exactly what we were looking for," Best said.
The complex project at Ochoco Lumber involves opening up and restoring the creek, restoring wetland and floodplain capacity, improving fish and wildlife habitat, and improving the riparian corridor and its function.
However, Bartlett would argue that he is plenty qualified, and said he has done significant restoration work on Ochoco Creek in the past.
"My creek project on Ochoco Creek alone is 80 percent of the rehabilitation to Ochoco Creek, and I can back that up with the facts," Bartlett said. "This project is on Ochoco Creek and they say I'm not qualified?"
"It's not that they weren't qualified to do the project, it's that this particular contractor understood the context of what these projects or structures did for the river system," Best countered. "They understood the vision that we were trying to get at Ochoco Lumber."
Best added, however, that while Parney Construction is the final selection of the contract award committee, the decision still needs to go before the 14-member CRWC board of directors before becoming final. |
