Mineola Reviewing Bids for Bruce Terrace Flood Project

The Village of Mineola has received bid packets back from contractors for the flood mitigation project along the Mineola-Carle Place border and Bruce Terrace.

There was a tie between three low-bidders which “basically come in very tight,” superintendent of public works Tom Rini said during a meeting of the village board on October 3 at the village hall. “The first two were actually pretty closer numbers so we’ve gone through all the numbers, those numbers do check out and the apparent low bidder seems to be the low bidder.”

Rini told the board that they did want to have a “pre-award” meeting to review qualifications of the contractors since the village had not worked with them before.

“We just want to make sure that they’ve done this type of work,” he said. “In certain areas we do have some very new pipework going on down maybe 12 ft.and I want to make sure that that contractor has done this type of work in the past and where they can tell us they’ve done and we can check those records.”

The intermunicipal land use license agreement between the village and the Town of North Hempstead regarding the land use for the project was also reportedly ready to be signed by Mayor Scott Strauss.

“It basically says what the are on the town to construct and maintain a recharge basin, to put up perimeter fencing with a natural screen and all of our departments have signed off on it,” village attorney John Spellman said, noting that the issue of a reported opt-out clause by the town after 5-years has been resolved.

“We mentioned to them that we didn’t think it would stop raining after 5 years so they’ve (agreed to maintain it) in perpetuity,” Spellman said, adding that the town would “remove all of their improvements to the property and regrade to it’s original grade.”

The agreement with the village, which was received and signed late last week, does call for the town to maintain catch basin in perpetuity.

Dee Park-based Tri-State Paving, LLC was awarded the Town of North Hempstead’s portion of the project, which consists of stonewall drainage basin and drainage improvements on Fairfield Avenue, Jerome Avenue and Raft Avenue, with construction expected to begin in “late fall” according to town spokesperson Colin Nash.