Graham’s city council rejected both remaining bids for demolition of the front part of a parking lot at 129 West Elm Street and the construction of a park on the site. The council acted during a brief, seven-minute meeting Monday morning.
The city opened three bids on Thursday. The low bidder had at first appeared to be Burlington-based Chadco, with a bid of $743,103, about 50 percent over what the city council was hoping to spend using $483,000 in leftover funds from a 2023 state grant.
However, as assistant city manager Aaron Holland explained to the city council during Monday morning’s meeting, that bid was disqualified because of certain conditions included in the bid.
That left the next lowest bid as one for $1,219,229 from another local bidder, Central Builders of Mebane. That bid is 2 ½ times the amount available through the leftover grant funds. A third, for $1.618 million, from Greensboro-based Bar Construction – was also received.
But those bids were deemed “too high” by council members Jim Young and Bonnie Whitaker, the only two council members who spoke on the issue during the special called meeting.
Young, who has along with mayor Chelsea Dickey, has opposed building the park, said the amounts were “just insane.”
Whitaker, who had heretofore supported the new park – part of a three-member majority with mayor pro tem Ricky Hall and councilman Bobby Chin – also pronounced them as too high.
Whitaker made the motion not to accept either of the bids and not to authorize staff to utilize grant funds to purchase park materials and proceed with construction, another option that was included on Monday’s council agenda.
Instead, the council voted unanimously, 5-0, for Whitaker’s motion.
The council also unanimously approved Hall’s motion to adjourn immediately after the vote on Whitaker’s motion.
Dickey said after the meeting, “I don’t think the community needs this park. We don’t need to be spending money on it.”
Possible extension of expiring state grant funds Another potential factor in the council’s consideration was potential relief from the time pressure to spend the remaining $483,000 from 2023 state grant funds.
Those funds were originally scheduled to expire June 30, and the council was desperate to designate and use the funds by that deadline.
However, during the past week the city received correspondence from state senator Amy Galey, who had designated the original $600,000 state grant for Graham – of which $483,000 remains – saying that a major Medicaid bill pending before the General Assembly this week “has a provision extending the deadline for the directed grants for another year.”
Galey said she expects the bill to pass later this week, which would include a year’s extension of the Graham grant.
