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Contractor selected for airport snow removal

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A new contractor has been selected to perform snow removal work at Archuleta County’s Stevens Field airport, according to airport manager Chris Torres, who briefed the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) on the matter during a work session held on Dec. 17, 2024.

Torres explained that no bids were received at first, so he contacted two local contractors to see if they would be interested in bidding. 

He noted that only one of those contractors submitted a bid, therefore making it a sole-bid contract.

The contract was awarded to Concrete Connection of Pagosa Springs, Torres indicated.

Commissioner Veronica Medina asked, “Why do you need snow removal?” while mentioning the county recently purchased a new snowplow.

Torres indicated that he needs workers to operate the snow removal equipment, explaining that the county has its own snow removal equipment, but the airport staff only has himself and one other employee to assist with snow removal operations.

“I’ve got six pieces of equipment and I’ve got one guy that runs snow removal,” Torres said. “We gotta have somebody to run it.”

Torres mentioned, “we’ve always done it that way,” noting it’s necessary to hire out for snow removal operations, otherwise it would take too long to clear the snow and open the airport with just him and one other county employee.

Medina asked if the contractor would be using the county’s equipment.

Torres explained the contractor would use the county’s equipment, along with its own equipment, but noted that the contractor only has trucks. 

He mentioned that the airport does not clear snow simply by pushing it off to the side like on highways due to lights and other airport equipment that needs to be cleared and not damaged from blowing snow.

“We do everything inside the fence,” Torres said, explaining that everything other than the fixed-base operator (FBO) parking lot is taken care of by the contractor.

“It’s always operated that way,” Commissioner Ronnie Maez said.

When asked about the cost of hiring a contractor by Commissioner Warren Brown, Torres indicated that it’s a “time and material” job.

He explained that the contractor will send five workers and charge a rate of $75 per hour when operating the county’s equipment. If the contractor only uses its equipment then the rate is $100 per hour, “which they hardly ever do.”

Torres mentioned that when he first started at the airport 20 years ago, the county awarded a full bid and gave a “ton of money” to somebody whether they plowed once or 10 times during the year.

Brown commented that it is essentially more “cost effective” to hire a contractor and pay an hourly rate for services when they are performed, rather than commit to a full bid. 

Brown noted that it’d be difficult for the county to hire an additional five employees to keep on year-round when there would not be much for them to do in the summer months.

“Yeah, that would not be cost effective at all,” Torres said.

Torres estimated that when the county would award a full bid, it would pay approximately $47,000 annually, regardless of the number of times snow removal was needed.

Now, the budget for snow removal is $30,000 annually “and we don’t use it,” he said, noting that last year the airport spent approximately $9,000 on snow-removal operations.

Maez commented that crews are plowing more often, and even in the middle of the night.

“We’re plowing a lot more often because those planes are coming in at different hours of the day,” Maez said.

The contract with Concrete Connections was unanimously approved by the BoCC during a regular meeting held later that day on Dec. 17, as part of the meeting’s consent agenda.

Parking lot
improvements

During the same meeting, the BoCC unanimously voted to approve the selection of Jviation to provide engineering design and construction management services for the paving of the FBO parking lot.

The matter was included as part of the consent agenda.

During the Dec. 17 work session, Torres explained that, per federal aviation guidelines, he contacted three companies for the paving project and only received one response, from Jviation.

“We’re moving forward on it now,” he said.

Torres indicated that the cost of the project won’t be known until a bid is received from Jviation, possibly sometime in April.

clayton@pagosasun.com