Fourth Set of Bids Due for Hockey Rink Repair

Bernards Township officials are moving ahead with a fourth try at obtaining an acceptable job proposal to resurface and to repair drainage at a roller hockey rink, locked up for about two years due to a cracking asphalt surface.

The Township Committee last week rejected a third set of bids for exceeding a budget of $175,000. Now the municipality has placed an advertisement for a fourth set of bids, due to be filed at the Bernards Township municipal building by next Wednesday, July 11, according to Bruce McArthur.

The Township Committee would be responsible for deciding whether to award a contract to install a new asphalt surface on the closed hockey rink, as well as addressing a supposed underlying drainage problem at the rink's location at Harry Dunham Park, and also replacing moldy sideboards at the athletic facility.

The lowest of two bids for the job, submitted in June, came in at $190,000, Township Engineer Tom Timko reported. 

As officials discussed scaling back the scope of the work a contractor would do, Township Committeeman John Carpenter said he would like to see some of the job completed "in-house" by municipal public works employees.

This April, the Township Committee set aside to completely overhaul the rink's surface and underlying structure.

Two earlier bids were rejected in 2011, with the first bid for an asphalt surface and related work coming in at $142,000, or more than the budgeted $125,000. The second set of bids improperly filled out paperwork, officials said then.

Renewed call for plastic tiles on surface

Meanwhile, resident Douglas Wicks continues to assert that the job can be done for less money, with a more long-lasting surface, if the township would install a surface made of interlocking plastic tiles that already is in use in other states, and in several locations in New Jersey.

He said last week that children in another state are laying the interlocking tiles in a community effort to lay down a rink surface.

A point of disagreement between Wicks and township officials is whether there is an underlying drainage problem that has caused the cracks to appear even before the rink was closed. The facility was built around 2000.

Timko has said that any surface will continue to crack as long a water is pooling underneath, or lying on the surface. Wicks disputes that conclusion and has produced a report that includes time-lapsed photos of a water-covered surface drying off within a few hours' time.

Timko and other township officials also have reminded Wicks that the first set of bids included an alternate proposal for a tile surface and drainage work, which at $173,000 last year was even $30,000 higher than the bid rejected for an asphalt surface with associated drainage work.

Wicks has that the advertisement for bids hadn't been written properly, and were in violation for the manufacturer's specifications for installation. Wicks insists that the water can drain through tiles, anyway.

Last month, on June 4, a state Superior Court judge denied Wicks' legal attempt to halt the third set of bids advertised and to have the specifications rewritten for a job to include another alternate proposal for a tile surface.

Altough the order to show cause, Wicks said he doesn't consider his lawsuit dead, and he will continue to press to have the bids rewritten in a way that he considers to be proper.

During multiple discussions at past Township Committee meetings on the merits of a tile versus asphalt surface, township officials also expressed concern about the chemicals used to clean the tiles, and also fears that the tiles could be very slick and dangerous when wet.

Nevertheless, at a previous meeting, Timko said that township officials might want to reconsider whether to go with a tile surface at some point in the future, after drainage issues at the site are resolved.

"If you put the tiles there [now], you will just have water laying on the tiles," Timko said earlier this year.