With spring just around the corner it is the right time to award a contract to complete the second phase of the new park in Penn Forest Township. The township put the phase out for bid last summer but only received one bid of over $2,000,000.

A new modified bid package was recently solicited and the bids were opened at Monday evening's board of supervisors meeting. Four bids were received.The lowest bidder was Custom Contracting out of Acme, Pennsylvania. The basic bid package quote was $1,097,379. The add-on of one additional tennis court was bid at $35,000. Custom did not individually quote the outfield sod alternate or infield seeding alternate, but said that those options were included in the basic package pricing.The highest bidder was Papillon and Moyer Excavating and Paving. Papillon and Moyer was the winning bidder on the first phase of the park. The basic bid price for Papillon and Moyer for the second phase was $1,864,000.The supervisors approved a motion to table the decision to award the contract pending an engineer's review of the bid package. A special meeting will be called sometime next week to announce the awarding of the contract.According to the Pennsylvania Department of General Services website, Custom Contracting was found to be in violation of the Public Works Employment Verification Act while under a contract with the Montour School District. In the letter to Custom Contracting, the department acknowledged that the company had since complied with the act, but that it had complied too late to avoid the notice of noncompliance.The Public Works Employment Verification Act which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2013, requires contractors to comply with the act before a contract is awarded. The act requires all public works contractors and subcontractors to use the federal E-Verify Program operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security to verify the employment eligibility of new employees.If for some reason Custom Contracting's bid is considered to be incorrect or if its references are not acceptable, the second lowest bidder Rutledge Excavating Inc. of Tyler Hill, Pennsylvania, would be considered for the award. Rutledge's basic bid was $1,216,499. The additional tennis court was bid at $54,909 and the alternate outfield sod was bid at $56,035 and infield seeding at $4,700.Other business included a motion to purchase a new, 2016 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 pickup with plow, spreader and light package. The plan is to trade in either one or both of the diesel trucks currently being used by the township. However, the plan is on hold pending a recommendation by township solicitor Thomas Nanovic regarding the township's legal ability to trade in rather than sell the trucks.The deal being considered is to trade both trucks in and purchase the one truck for $48,500. Under this plan the township will receive a $25,000 refund to put in escrow for the purchase of a second truck. The vehicle will be purchased from Fairway Chevrolet on the COSTARS program.The township is also getting tough on collecting delinquent garbage accounts. The township solicitor recently placed 10 liens on properties in the township for overdue trash bills, and the board approved a motion to have the solicitor send legal demand letters for payment to all residents with overdue bills between $100 and $400.The board also approved writing off $1,778.43 in uncollectable trash bills for properties that have been foreclosed on and sold at sheriff's sale. An additional $4,984.76 was written off for trash bills that were sent out in error.The supervisors adopted a resolution for the disposition of records. The records to be destroyed are for the period of 1962 to 2001. A list of the records is available from the township under a Right to Know request.The supervisors approved a memorandum of understanding with the union amending the current contract to include a family membership with the Lehighton Ambulance Association for each employee."Every year we have budgeted a donation for the Lehighton Ambulance Association. We assumed that this meant that should one of our employees be injured at work the ambulance would be covered," Supervisor Christine Fazio said. "It turns out we were wrong. So we made the decision that instead of making the donation we would use the money to purchase family memberships for each employee so that they would be covered in the event of an accident."The memorandum of understanding will only cover the balance of the current union contract.