By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – Following the advice of its legal counsel, the St. John the Baptist Parish Council threw out the low bid for the Homewood Drainage Basin Project in Reserve because of errors on the bidder’s bid sheet.

The council also moved to reject the remaining five bids for the project because all came in well over the $1.159 million budget for the work.

Parish Director of Purchasing Brenda Labat told the council that the low bidder, Gilmore and Sons Construction of Hammond, incorrectly filled out the bid sheet for the project and said the second-lowest bidder, Hamp’s Construction of New Orleans, filed a protest.

Gilmore and Sons’ bid for the project was $1.099 million while Hamp’s came in at $1.388 million.

Labat said the challenge by Hamp’s stems from the fact the Gilmore bid left two blank fields on the state-mandated bid form referring to alternates 2 and 3. The parish only advertised one alternate for the project, the conversion of an electrical drainage pump to diesel, so Gilmore left the spaces for other alternates blank, but Hamp’s and two of the four other bidders put “N/A” for “not applicable” on their forms.

Labat said state law requires that all fields be filled on a bid form. She also said Hamp’s argued that Gilmore’s company seal does not appear in the correct spot on the bid document.

After voting to throw out the low bid reject all other bids, the council immediately authorized the re-bidding of the drainage project to avoid further delays. Parish President Natalie Robottom said the move could delay the project as much as four weeks.

The project involves installing a second drainage pipe under Airline Highway near Homewood Place, installing two flap gates to protect neighborhoods south of Airline Highway from tidal flooding, moving an existing drainage pump on the Reserve Relief Canal farther north and adding a second pump next to the existing pump. The project is expected to correct drainage problems around Homewood Place and Central Avenue in Reserve, which is flood-prone and typically gets inundated after heavy rainfall.

In other action, the council voted to approve an ordinance calling for a special election to authorize an additional homestead exemption for certain disabled veterans and surviving spouses.

St. John Assessor Whitney Joseph said the ordinance is part of a bill recently passed in the state legislature regarding the extra homestead exemption. He said the decision would allow 100 percent disabled veterans an additional $75,000 homestead exemption. He said a similar ordinance was recently passed in St. Charles Parish.

The council also approved a resolution to allow the parish and the state Department of Transportation and Development to award a more than $411,000 contract to Barrier Construction Co. for the first phase of the Mississippi River Multi-use Trail atop the east bank levee.

The first phase of the trail will run from the St. John/St. Charles Parish line upriver to Walnut Street. Robottom said the parish is only responsible for 5 percent of the construction costs, or about $20,000.

Robottom said phase 2 of the project, which will extend from Walnut Street into Reserve, will go out for bids in the next eight months.