City Commissioners were scheduled to vote on a $3.5 million construction contract during their Feb. 6 meeting.

Staff was recommending awarding the contract to Wadsworth Builders for the Great Falls Police Department evidence building.

The project will be funded with American Rescue Plan Act dollars, which are federal COVID relief funds.

City likely to postpone GFPD evidence building construction award

The project includes the construction of a roughly 8,000-square-foot addition onto the south side of the existing GFPD building.

The city amended the commission agenda on Feb. 6 recommending that commissioners postpone the award to their Feb. 20 meeting since a formal protest was filed by James Talcott Construction, the other bidder on the project.

Commissioners voted to postpone the award, as requested by staff.

The bid was broken into a base bid plus contingency, with two additional alternatives.

City Commissioner to consider $3.5 million contract for GFPD evidence addition

While reviewing bids, staff noticed different interpretations by the bidders.

The bid form indicated that a 2.5 percent contingency of the base bid was to be included in the base bid, according to staff.

Wadsworth added the contingency line item to the base bid while Talcott added it to the total base bid, according to staff, but it didn’t change the overall lowest bid.

Staff confirmed the numbers with bidders and continued their review.

Talcott Construction filed a formal protest and staff are “thoroughly reviewing the issues raised by the protest,” according to the updated staff report, and request the additional time to prepare their recommendation to the commission.

City approves contract for GFPD evidence addition

During the Feb. 6 meeting, Brad Talcott said it was a complicated issue and that his company hadn’t yet filed a protest, but would protest if the contract was awarded to Wadsworth.

He said he hoped they could have a conversation rather than deal with lawyers.

Commissioner Rick Tryon said, “I’m perplexed,” as to whether there was a protest.

City legal, fire discuss options for public safety levy

David Dennis, city attorney, said at the end of the meeting that Sylvia Tarman, the city’s APRA project manager, had handled the matter up until Talcott’s attorney contacted Dennis by phone and followed up by email.

Dennis said he responded by email and then received a letter from Talcott’s attorney that they were protesting the award.

Tryon said he didn’t want the issue to go beyond the Feb. 20 meeting because “we need this evidence building. It bothers me that we’re now getting into lawyers.”

He said he wasn’t blaming anyone but that the city needed to get the project done.

Commissioner Joe McKenney said he was okay with postponing the contract award but was confused as to what the next step was.

Tarman said staff would take the extra time to review the bids and the protest to make an updated recommendation to commissioners at their next meeting, when they would take action on the contract.