10/6/2009 3:58:00 PM Supervisors reject low bid for paint job at Camp Verde Jail
By Bruce Colbert Contributing Reporter
PRESCOTT - The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors on Monday rejected American Pride Painting's low bid to paint the outside walls at the Camp Verde jail, and instead voted to hire Listol Painting Inc., the second-lowest bidder.
"We found through the Arizona Registrar of Contractors that the person listed on the bid is not qualified to work under that license," Facilities Director Pat Kirshman told the supervisors.
Eight companies bid for the job, and American Pride and Painting is the low bid at $43,677. Listol Painting Inc. bid $49,867. Ghaster Painting & Coatings had the high bid at $157,620. Kirshman could not explain the wide gap between the low bid and high bid.
Kirshman said that Listol would need between 350 and 400 gallons of paint to cover the 85,000 square feet of jail walls. He expects Listol to start painting in October and finish by mid-December.
Also, the board approved Management Information Systems Director Michael Holmes' request to upgrade the county's Internet connection. County employees and public users of the county's website should notice in mid-December a faster Internet connection.
Holmes explained that the county has several off-site Internet connections, such as Seligman, that are slow and expensive to use. He wants to consolidate the off-site connections into one large connection.
MIS planned for the upgrade sometime in 2010. However, Sheriff Steve Waugh asked Holmes to do it sooner because the current connections would not handle the Yavapai County Sheriff's new remote booking system.
This past July, Waugh went online with the computerized system that has deputies using laptop computers to pre-book suspects from remote locations, which shortens booking time at the Camp Verde jail.
Waugh told the supervisors he currently has 24 laptops in the field, but is aiming to have as many as 125 sometime in the future. Holmes said that the start-up costs would be about $36,000, and he could pay those by deferring other projects that he already budgeted.
In other business, the board upheld Phoenix Cement Co.'s appeal of its assessed value from the Yavapai County Assessor's Office on its cement plant at Clarkdale. The Assessor's Office valued the business at about $128.5 million, and the company claimed its value is $126.1 million.
The board voted in favor of the cement plant because they said a section of valuation formula used to assess the business resembled "double taxing."
