News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
All bids were rejected for phase one of Algood’s future 21-acre park during Tuesday night’s city council meeting.
The lowest bid came in at $1,054,900. Mayor Lisa Chapman-Fowler said rejecting the bids might be an unpopular decision but the alternative is coming up with more money towards the park.
“We’re trying to be conservative with our dollars,” Chapman-Fowler said. “We understand that we want our park to begin and our citizens want our park to begin but we were stunned when these bids came in.”
The council will meet again in a special called meeting at the end of July, when new bids come in with park components taken out.
City Administrator Keith Morrison said he believes enough items can be removed to still have a usable park by the end of the year. Morrison said that talks have already started with bidders about cost lowering measures.
“It does include two styles of lighting around the walkways, it has the lighting that lights up the actual walkways and it has the larger, taller lights to light up the surrounding area,” Morrison said. “So all of that is included in it. One of my assumptions is going to be that all of that electrical and extra lighting is a huge chunk of cost.”
Morrison said that if lighting is cut, it would make it a daytime park. Councilman Luke Hill said that seemed like a good compromise.
“If we have to take the lighting out and just have a daytime park, that’s great,” Hill said. “I think that would be a great phase .75 and I want to make sure that we have something usable for our citizens.”
Morrison said the expectation is still to have work start on the park by the end of August, so it can happen in the dry season. A date has not been set for the special called meeting for park bids, but Morrison said notice will go out when a date is set.
