Local, Park Forest

Audit and Sewer Replacement on the Docket at Monday’s Village Board Meeting

Park Forest, IL-(ENEWSPF)- The Village of Park Forest’s Board of Trustees will hold a meeting on February 6, 2023, to discuss the 2021/2022 Audit Presentation and the 2023 Sanitary Sewer Replacement project. Representatives from the Village’s auditing firm, Lauterbach and Amen, will present the audit results, which have been submitted to the GFOA for the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting (COA) Program award.

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The Village has received the COA award for 26 consecutive years in a row.

The sanitary sewer replacement project will replace 1,876 feet of the sewer line. Staff recommends that the contract be awarded to M/J Underground, located in Monee, IL, for a total cost (with a 10% contingency) of $459,825.31.

According to Nicholas Christie, Assistant Village Engineer, a total of 1,876 feet of sewer were bid to be replaced, including:

  1. Base Bid: 249-253 Minocqua; 236-380 Blackhawk; 380 Blackhawk-426 Huron (through Majestic Luxury Townhomes parking lot and rear yard easements).
  2. Alternate #1: Minocqua Court
  3. Alternate #2: 351-355 Miami

Why the alternates? According to Mr. Christie

DPW was not confident in our bid estimate, given the volatility of the current construction market. Thus we made the decision to create a base bid with two alternates, allowing us to award the contract based on the available funding. M/J Underground, located in Monee, IL, was the lowest bidder with a base bid in the amount of $306,652.01, Alternate #1 in the amount of 58,405.00, and Alternate #2 in the amount of 52,966.00, for a total of $418,023.01. This was lower than the Engineer’s Estimate of $571,225.20

M/J Underground has performed numerous underground contracts for the Village previously “and DPW has been satisfied with their work,” Mr. Christie said in his memo on this matter to the board. “In 2020, they performed two similar contracts for the Village on Oswego and Indianwood Streets.”

M/J Underground is also listed as a Women- Owned Business, according to Asst. Director Christie and the company’s website.

The Village already has funds for this contract in the Sewer Fund where $500,000 is allocated to sewer improvements within Capital Outlays, according to Asst. Director Christie.

The meeting will also discuss a Resolution accepting a loan to a grant from and participating in the Illinois Housing Development Authority Capital Bill Preservation Program- Limited Rehabilitation and an Ordinance Approving a Text Amendment to Article VII (Signs) of the Unified Development Ordinance.

The full agenda for Monday’s meeting is available here.

Note: The rough outline for this article was written with the assistance of OpenAI. The system produced an outline of what became the lede of this story and the entire last paragraph above. I and other journalists of the Local News Alliance, a nascent organization of five local online publishers so far, decided to experiment with this technology and learn the possibilities and limitations. One requirement of using the technology, we decided on so far, is to acknowledge our use of this tech in articles it helps us produce.

This piece required significant editing, but I found the initial copy it produced useful. Did it save time? Not in this case. I am restricting the use of AI tech for assistance with simple articles like this where I present items for upcoming meetings based on agendas governing bodies produce.

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