County rejects Pollard House bids and approves roofing retrofit for CARES building

The Public Works and Engineering Services Committee voted to reject bids for the Pollard House renovation after staff said market changes produced higher-than-expected bids. Speaker 7 said the county will value-engineer the project with staff and administration and rebid it in about three to four months to bring costs within budget.

Also presented by Speaker 7 was an independent contractor agreement with Thompson Roofing to retrofit the Columbia County CARES Building roof following wind damage sustained during Hurricane Helene. Staff recommended the retrofit as a metal-over-metal solution; the contract amount is $70,965 and the item was approved on consent.

Speaker 7 told the committee that recent bid patterns have been more aggressive and that a single low bidder was about 17% lower than others, prompting the recommendation to reject. The transcript records staff estimates of a three- to four-month redesign period before rebidding; the committee approved the rejection motion and the roofing contract on consent.

The committee did not provide roll-call vote counts in the transcript for these actions.