The County of Stettler council approved a bid to replace a bridge but rejected bids for two other projects, electing instead to do them “in-house.” The resolutions were passed at the Aug. 13 regular meeting of council.

Councillors read a report from staff regarding tenders released for three bridge replacement projects with Alberta Transportation as a partner, all three projects being bridges to be replaced with bridge culverts. The project numbers were 76970, 1778 and 1856.

“Grant funding is provided through (provincial) funding at 75 percent,” stated the staff report. “Please note that local road bridge file 1856 is to be completed by Dec. 31, 2025, or the county must request an extension. WSP Engineering tendered a revised tender for all three bridge files.

“Unfortunately, even with a revised tender reducing the scope of work, only one bid for 76970 was submitted within the budget. A financial summary using the lowest bids is attached for all three projects.” To clarify, of the three projects which had been publicly tendered, only one came in under the county’s budget.

As staff began to explain the projects, Coun. James Nibourg interjected that, due to a letter that was included in the agenda package, councillors should discuss this issue privately. Reeve Larry Clarke responded the letter was publicly included in the agenda packet.

Nibourg responded, “It is, but the discussion I think we should have is outside of that.” Councillors voted 5 to 2 to table the item to discuss in closed session.

The letter Nibourg referred to was from Road to Rail Construction Group (RTRC) of Camrose signed by spokesperson Nathan MacLeod. MacLeod stated in that Aug. 6 letter he wasn’t happy with the way one project in this item, 1778, was tendered.

“It’s understood that there were seven bidders at the time of closing, and that RTRC was a low bid,” stated MacLeod’s letter. “On July 30, RTRC received a summary of bids from the County of Stettler which showed eight bidders with the additional bidder being North Star Trucking.

“Upon review of the summary of bids, it now appears that North Star Trucking is low bidder and that the county intends to award them the project simply based on their geographic location with the intent to save costs.” MacLeod noted he felt the County of Stettler erred in awarding project 1778 to North Star Trucking, and that the project should be awarded to RTRC instead.

After discussion in closed session later in the meeting, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Yvette Cassidy stated these bridge projects have been challenging to complete. She said these are the three remaining bridges to be completed and it’s the second time they’ve been tendered; last time they all came in over budget, but had been tendered as one large project. This time, noted the CAO, they were divided into three smaller jobs. “The first time the costs were way too high,” said Cassidy. “We couldn’t afford them.”

Cassidy explained a summary sent to RTRC had a staff error in it and pointed out that North Star Trucking had never bid on project 1778. As this was discussed in closed session, it’s not exactly clear what happened but it seems according to documents and comments that RTRC was the low bidder on project 1778, but their bid was still over budget which explains why RTRC wasn’t awarded the job.

Cassidy stated staff recommended awarding project 76970 to North Star Trucking while rejecting all other bids because they exceeded the budget set by council.

The CAO stated she thought the other two bridge files, 1778 and 1856, could be completed by County of Stettler staff.

Coun. Nibourg observed this should be explained to RTRC with Cassidy saying, “Yes, we will respond.” She noted the county will apologize to RTRC for the error.

Councillors passed three resolutions: to award project 76970 to North Star Trucking, to reject all other bids and to direct staff to develop a plan to complete the other bridge files “in-house.”