Cobleskill Rebids Mickle Hollow

COBLESKILL - On Monday, the Cobleskill Town Board announced that it will be re-issuing the Mickle Hollow Road project for a second round of bidding.

The project, meant to repair critical infrastructure, faced a roadblock last month when the first round of bids came up empty. 

At the time, the Town speculated that they had tried contacting companies too late into their annual cycle, and they were likely booked by other projects. As a result, the Board resolved to re-issue the project as soon as possible to avoid rising inflation costs.

Reading aloud the terms, Town Clerk Tina Ward noted that interested companies must contact GPI, the project manager, and have their bid in no later than May 27th.

All bids plan to be unsealed and publicly read aloud on May 29th in the presence of both Town officials and GPI.

Supervisor Werner Hampel did give a word of caution, noting that they’ll likely see higher costs from this delay.

“It’s a 1.5 million dollar grant, and the project is over by $112,000,” he said. “The longer it goes, with inflation and the cost of doing business, that’ll increase.”

Nevertheless, the Board is hopeful that they’ll attract quality bidders this time around, and they’re looking forward to seeing this project advance.

In other news, Highway Superintendent Tim Gallagher gave the Board a synopsis of the work he has planned for this summer.

He noted that his crew is in the process of stripping the winter equipment from the fleet of trucks, and they’ve already swept both their roads and Seward’s roads in exchange for their highway superintendent helping out with training.

Superintendent Gallagher currently has his eye on paving the top of Greenbush Road, but before that can happen, his crew will need to replace three cross culverts that total up to forty feet.

In addition, he plans on running maintenance on soft spots for Clapper, Robinson, Mickle Hollow, and Settles Mountain Road, believing that’s where most of their summer work will stem from.

Finally, the Town approved a policy to pay their employees through electronic direct deposit.

Supervisor Hampel explained that with scams becoming a growing problem on the Internet, the Town would like to pivot away from verifying payable hours through email and switch to in-person forms.

The forms will be held by every department head so that their employees may request a direct deposit instead of a paycheck, but they will still have the option for either method.

Once all of the Town’s business had concluded, the Board entered into executive session to discuss employment.