Move comes after public comment by contractor

The Prescott City Council met in regular meeting November 23, ultimately deciding to table a decision on the courtesy dock after comment from one of the competing contractors.

Present on site at the City Hall November 23 were Prescott mayor Dave Hovel and alderperson Josh Gergen. City Administrator Jayne Brand was also present in the council chamber. Attending remotely were City of Prescott council members Bailey Ruona, Maureen Otwell, Dar Hintz, and Thomas Oss. Alderman Robert Daugherty was absent.

Speaking during public comment, Al Dunn from Stoddard Wisconsin addressed the county on an alternative bid of $269,625 by Water Works for the City’s courtesy dock project. River City Welding, meanwhile, had submitted a bid for the project totaling $310,000.

“Good evening Mr. Mayor and city council,” Dunn began. I’m here to speak about the courtesy dock bid that will be decided later.”

Referencing a letter from Cedar Corporation dated November 21, Dunn listed four bullet point items related to the courtesy dock that he said were inaccurate.

“A lot of the statements in here are not correct,” Dunn said of the memo, saying that he felt some things had been misrepresented and wanted to go on the record to correct them.

“Number one, the floating dock is to be of galvanized steel,” he read from the memo. A galvanized steel design had been proposed by Water Works, Dunn said, but was to be made of titanium steel, a slight difference. Next up was bullet point two.

“Number two, permanently install dock in river.” The dock was definitely permanent, with no intentions of removal, Dunn said.

“Number three: Structurally capable. Handling large boats, resisting river current,” he read the memo.

“Our dock would come with an engineer’s stamp and set of plans to prove all those things,” Dunn said of bullet point three from the memo.

Regarding number four, the dock’s deck would be a power coated aluminum panel with anti-skid built into the surface, as anytime it was slippery or there was dew natural wood posed a slipping danger.

Commenting further, Dunn said that while Hewitt was used by Water Works for its docks, each dock was its own unique job, not prefabricated. And while the memo said that $41,000 more could provide a custom-manufactured product from River City Dock showed “a good value for the product,” Dunn countered by saying that, “We have provided the same thing. I’m assuming in this day and age, $41,000 would go pretty far in your budget,” he said.

Upon later discussion, a motion was made by Gergen and seconded by Ruona to table bids on the courtesy dock until the December 14th Council Meeting, the motion passing without a negative voice vote.