Mount Greylock School Committee Rejects Bid

The Berkshire Eagle  reports the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee decided Thursday night not to take a leap of faith.

By a vote of 6-1, the committee rejected the low bid submitted for an athletic fields project after the price tag came in far higher than the committee expected when it authorized a request for proposals in May.

The subcommittee steering the fields project — acting on the advice of the district's consultant, Traverse Landscape Architect — believed that the district had an option to extend the bidding process and engage all three qualified bidders in a discussion about value engineering options to reduce the project's cost.

By Thursday, officials learned that the "Option 3" considered by the Phase 2 Subcommittee was, in fact, not an option at all under the commonwealth's procurement law.

That left the School Committee with two alternatives: Accept a $2.85 million bid from the Clark Companies or reject that bid and put the project out to bid again.