Holmes County receives $1.1M bid for bridge repair project

MILLERSBURG – Holmes County Commissioners on Monday received one bid for the proposed bridge repair project at Bunny John's Bridge on County Road 19.

The bid was from V.O. Menuez & Sons of Millersburg for nearly $1.120 million. The engineer's estimate for the project was less than $1.1 million.

County Engineer Chris Young will review the bid and offer his recommendation to the commissioners next week.

Young said the county has received grant money in the amount of $677,000 from Ohio Public Works for the project, and the rest will come from county funding.

County Road 19: Holmes County commissioners approve purchase for bridge replacement

"It's a real sharp turn on that bridge there, so we're taking that turn and straightening it out," he said. "Hopefully we'll have a contract signed and then we'll work with the contractor to move ahead with the project."

Young expects the road to be closed for 120 days once the project gets underway.

The commissioners in November purchased a parcel of land needed to straighten the road where the bridge repair work will be done on County Road 19.

Commissioner Ray Eyler pointed out a local company has bid for the project.

The engineer also reported that his office has applied for and received two other grants through the County Engineers Association of Ohio. One grant for $25,500 is for a curb study on all the county roads. The other grant for $30,000 is for an inventory of all the signs for bridges, culverts and guardrails along the roadways.

"They have a mobile mapper now that takes videos of everything, so we will have all that data that identifies what signs are where," Young said. "We'll have a true inventory of our signs to match against the federal database."

He added the county is working with the Chamber of Commerce to improve the visibility of road signs throughout the county.

"We're actually investigating printing our own signs," Young said. "We've found that if we were able to print our own signs, it would improve the supply chain. Sometimes when we order a sign, it takes more than a month to get here."

Emergency resolution to replace fire alarm system approved

In other business, the commissioners passed an emergency resolution to replace the fire alarm system at the Job & Family Services building.

JFS Director Dan Jackson reported a short in the antiquated existing system set off several false alarms last week.

"The computer board that governs the system is 28 years old and the boards haven't been made in over a decade," Jackson said. "That entire system is completely beyond repair, leaving us without a fire alarm system. We want to replace this as quickly as possible."

Eyler noted that by making an emergency resolution, there is no need to bid out the project, as long as it is under $100,000.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: One bid received for Holmes County Road 19 Bridge repair project