By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com
Competitive bidding beat concerns about construction time Tuesday night.
Instead of accepting a national bid, the Joplin R-8 Board of Education voted to seek its own bids for a synthetic-grass surface for Junge Field.
The motion, made by board member Mark Smith and seconded by James Meadows, passed 4-3. Smith, Meadows, Ashley Micklethwaite and Jim Kimbrough voted in favor, with Robert Lee, Mike Landis and Anne Sharp voting “no.”
“I don’t think there is any downside to seeking competitive bids,” Smith said during the meeting. “That’s what the public expects of us when spending $800,000 of their money.”
Jason Berning, representing FieldTurf Tarkett, defended his company’s bid of $780,000, and said that amount could be lowered by removing some features. He said his company, through an arrangement with Atlas Track and Tennis, won a national bid with the Association of Educational Purchasing Agencies.
But Jeff Quarter, a representative of Mid-America Golf, said companies that install the surface are going to get busy quickly, and that Joplin’s field could be delayed.
Lee said he was in favor of accepting FieldTurf Tarkett’s national bid because of those timing concerns.
“I have some concerns about not using a bid that has already been approved,” Lee said. “If we do this bid, the company that wins may not be able to get the field done” in time for next fall.
A reason for the board’s haste is the recent announcement that an anonymous person would lend a booster group up to $375,000 of the project’s cost. Boosters would pay back the loan through fund raising over the next three years.
Bids will be presented to the board by the bidding companies during a meeting May 22. The winning bid will be discussed during the June 12 meeting.
The bidding procedure does not guarantee that the board will purchase turf.
Bobby Landis, spokesman for a group in favor of the turf, said he was happy with the results, but he asked the board to use the same bid requests that FieldTurf Tarkett used for the national bid.
“Their bid locks them in,” Bobby Landis said. “Now everyone will know what their bid is. Out of fairness to them, the board should use the same bid specifications.”
Missouri law allows a political subdivision to use a bid submitted to another political subdivision. The procedure, called “piggybacking,” allows a political subdivision to save time and resources by not reproducing another government’s work.
Last day of school
Joplin students will get to scream “school’s out” four days early.
The Joplin R-8 Board of Education voted Tuesday to move the last day of school to May 24. The board used a provision of a bill signed last week by Gov. Matt Blunt.
The board approved the motion unanimously.
Joplin students missed four days of school because of January’s ice storm.
Board member Mark Smith said he heard from a group of parents concerned about missing those days of school.
“My principal reason to vote for this is to support teachers and allow them to have a break before summer school,” Smith said. “The ice storm was an unusual hardship.”
Virginia Englebert, who said she is a parent of six children, lambasted the board for the decision during the public-comment portion of the meeting.
“I’ve told my kids that the most important thing in life they could do is to get a good education and go to school,” Englebert said. “Today, you told my kids that it’s more important for everyone to get to summer school on time.”
