Village Board Awards Bid for Roller Rink Project

After some debate, trustees unanimously awarded the roller hockey rink replacement bid to Philip Ross Industries, Inc for $328,000.

A Euston Road resident attended Thursday's board meeting to support the project at Community Park, stating, "It's a great idea and we're looking forward to a new rink in the spring."

Trustee Nick Episcopia, who prefaced his remarks by saying he was "clearly" in favor of moving forward with the project, said due diligence is paramount.

As the Public Works liaison Episcopia said there's a standard for approving contractors and even offered to create a questionnaire contractors could fill out. The form would seek information regarding the company's net worth, type of ownership, whether or not it could get bonded for the job and more.

A representative from the department of Public Works said contractors must fill out a reference sheet, which requests most of the information Episcopia mentioned.

Kevin Ocker, village recreation director, said Philip Ross Industries, Inc. just completed the $2.2 million pool contract and came highly recommended.

"I understand the need to do background checking. There's no question," he said. "With respect to this particular contract, we need to meet a weather deadline to do concrete work. I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot but I am very concerned with any delay whatsoever. We have a contractor ready to go."

Trustee Laurence Quinn agreed, adding that the hockey crew has been "eagerly awaiting this."

"I would certainly go forward on approving this without any conditions because we're going to have a good 100 people upset if there's no hockey rink in the spring," Quinn said. "I don't see that we'll be able to accomplish this task if you have any delay whatsoever."

There was some back and forth between Ocker and Episcopia, who appeared peeved by Ocker's remarks. "How long will it take for him to lay concrete?
About a month? You have any idea how long it would take him to do these questions? Because I could give you an estimate - about an hour and a half.
That's all it takes. Nobody here is trying to stretch this out for months. What we're trying to do is put in a process that protects us."

"Well, we can't control the weather," Ocker replied.

Episcopia awarded the bid without condition because of the company's "track record" but advised the board he wanted to go ahead with the process in the future.

Trustee Dennis Donnelly added that the board should also find out why there's sometimes a large discrepancy in bids. "I think it's wise to ask bidders who come in $70,000, $80,000 higher why it was so high," he said.