Beardmore: Wait for bids on Rec Center before making final call – Carroll Daily Times Herald

Mayor-elect Mark Beardmore says officials at City Hall should wait for bids to return on a Rec Center project before deciding its fate.

Depending on the bids opened at City Hall at 2 p.m., Feb. 1, it may make sense to move forward on a plan determined by the outgoing City Council, or scrap the proposal and send the matter back to a public referendum, Beardmore said in an interview.

Elected officials this week proceeded toward obtaining bids on what is estimated to be a $7.75 million project at the Carroll Recreation Center.

One big factor: the city already has $500,000 invested in the modernization of the Carroll Recreation Center.

Its going to be really challenging for myself and the City Council to go back on whats already been done, Beardmore said.

The current City Council voted 6-0 Monday to approve plans and specifications, as well as the estimated cost, for the improvements at the 1977 Rec Center, which would include a full-court gymnasium addition with a second-level suspended jogging track, storage-room additions, cardio and circulation additions, multi-purpose room renovations, locker room renovations, a lifeguard office and individual family changing room additions.

Carroll City Council members in March approved a $500,000 engineering contract with RDG Planning & Design, a prominent Midwest firm, for work associated with the improvements to the Carroll Recreation Center. The measure passed 6-0.

The city cant recoup that money if it drops the project, although the planning could be used as a basis to pivot in another direction with work at the Rec Center. Beardmore noted that, for example, building codes change regularly and that a shelved plan would have to be redone in the future at more cost to the city.

Beardmore has said the process did not have enough public input, and he thinks the city could have considered specific bidding on certain portions of the Rec Center plan and prioritized differently.

Ive voiced my concerns, but thats water under the bridge, he said.

The question for Beardmore and the other three newly elected members of city government who have expressed concern with the process is this: do they shelve a plan with a half a million dollars already invested, and one that might result in favorable bids, or move ahead to the bid stage to evaluate it then?

Maybe well get some really, really competitive bids, Beardmore said.

If the plan goes forward construction is expected to be completed by May 1, 2023. City officials have a plan to keep the Rec Center open during construction.

The vast majority of the funding would come through local option sales tax proceeds, which could account for $6.6 million of the project.

The city plans to issue $700,000 in general obligation debt, a figure just low enough that it doesnt trigger a public referendum a major point of contention in the November election.

City of Carroll voters on Sept. 8, 2020 rendered a split decision in a local election as they passed a continuation of the 17-year-old 1 percent local option sales tax but rejected the citys plan to use up to $5 million in general-obligation bond debt financing toward a $13.38 million modernization of the Recreation Center.

The more aggressive Rec Center plan included major pool additions. Those have been dropped from the current plan.

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Beardmore: Wait for bids on Rec Center before making final call - Carroll Daily Times Herald