Old Alabama Rd Contractors Rewarded! City Staff is Recommending Hiring the Same Contractor that is doing the Old Alabama Rd project, for Abbotts Bridge Rd, between Jones Bridge Rd & Parsons Rd.
CW Matthews had the lowest bid, and Public Works Staff cited CW Matthews responsiveness and being responsible as the reasons to hire them.
Councilwoman Endres pointed out several issues during the July 11th Work Session.
With the ongoing drama of Old Alabama Rd, she was concerned that would replicate on another major road within the City. Staff was directed to review the Contract and improve upon it.
Old Alabama is managed by GDOT and has been a painful process to watch and experience, holding a major road and nearby subdivisions hostage. The meager 1/2 mile is 'expected' to finish by the end of the year.
What do you think of the Old Alabama Rd Contractors, CW Matthews?
our public works is screwed up if they think these guys are responsive and responsible. hardly ever see any activity when I drive by.
If there is no stipulation on completion date, the contractor uses this project as a fill in job to work on at his convenience. The Old Alabama job is a good example of this strategy. Old Alabama would have been no more than a 3 month job in most cities
@Sam Kiker, but JC is the "exception!"
As a construction lawyer, I totally concur with Sam. There should be milestones and substantial completion dates with liquidated damages for failure to achieve.
Just finish a project before you start another. This would be nice. There's been so little activity this summer on the old Alabama site.
The problem with all of these bids starts with taking the lowest bid on everything. As everyone should know, lowest bid does not always equal the best job done. We need to learn from past mistakes and move forward.
The main issues with all of these big companies is how their business model works. These guys come in with low bids knowing they will have cost overages and change orders in the scope of the job where they will make make up the difference between the low bid and what they would actually have charged if they were doing a regular bid.
Next they have a start date for the project so they come out and drop off some equipment on site which fulfills their contract of being on site by a certain start date. The problems arise when they don't actually start doing any work for a week or more. These large companies have so many projects going at one time that they just rotate from project to project as time and equipment become available for each different job. This is how they come in with the low bids and then take soooo long to get the job done. All we hear is the blame game where its a utilities fault for not moving lines or some other issue that is the reason for their delays. It is never their fault.
We as a city also need to have stiff penalties in place for not meeting start dates and completion dates or targets for the project. No excuses, we just want results and the job done in a timely manner and at or under budget.
There are other options besides these big companies such as C.W. Matthews and Blount who seem to get all of these jobs. Maybe we need to look at some of the smaller companies that are capable, hungry and willing to work at our jobs each day (weather permitting) till the job is complete.
As a construction lawyer, I agree with J. Caldwell like I did with the Comments of Sam Kiker.
Wasnt c w mathews involved in 285 ROAD PAVING and bid rigging scandal in the 1980"s ? If so why are we using them.
Not sure. Was that in Sandy Springs or Dekalb co. by chance. It seems that many of the public works guys job hop from city to city so that would explain why they always get these projects. I'm guessing there is some good ol boy network taking place and some serious wining and dining. These large companies have big money alloted to wooing customers.
To think that we are getting ready to be asked to vote on a 0.75% sales tax to fund more transportation projects with even less oversight than we have had on the past should be of serious concern to all Johns Creek taxpayers.
That will effectively double your local taxes here in Johns Creek.
Were they to have shown they gave us a great return on the dollar, I'd be all for it.
Think Parsons Road, Old Alabama Road, the construction of islands and the removal of the same islands on State Bridge, traffic circles that are a nightmare to navigate(and this is just for starters) and you have to ask yourself why the future dollars will be better spent than the past dollars, especially when you cannot stop it for five years (if ever).
If you know the answer, please share it. I am listening.
As citizens we need the names and titles of the individuals who made this egregious error in judgement. If they are not elected officials we need the names of those responsible for the significant errors in judgement that made these appointments. This is another example of why this city will always be a distant second to Alpharetta. The lowest bid with no penalties or a completion date is absurd. What a clown patrol!!! Kevin the lottery goat could have made better decisions here.
Tom Black is head of Public Works.
Warren Hutmacher is the City Manager, responsible for ALL staff and the documents and contracts brought forth to council.
Can we presume that they are Bodker appointees???
Tom Black and Warren Hutmacher and the city counsel have not done their job. The Old Alabama project has taken too long and will accomplish very little. Without any changes to Medlock Bridge the corner will continue to be a bottleneck.
Just drove through the intersection of Old Alabama and 141 heading north. That intersection has all the traffic blocked heading south, which also impacts State Bridge east and west.
A better plan would have been to have three lanes southbound through that intersection merging back into two after OAR.
Even better would have been to have three left turn lanes from OAR to 141 north and a continuous flow right turn on OAR to 141 south.
The land was there. Undeveloped.
It would never have been less expensive to do the right thing at that intersection now.
What we lack in vision we make up for with state and federal grants.
Think about that as you catch the trifecta of lights red from OAR through State Bridge.
And the poor southbound drivers: 6 (maybe 7) from Wilson Road to OAR....what a daily waste of time and energy.