Fairfield council approves bid for Central Park tables work

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield City Council took another step Monday toward installing eight tables in Central Park.

The council accepted a bid of $15,300 from Prosper Companies for concrete work and cutting brick pavers that will serve as the foundation to the table stations. The project calls for four stations of two tables each along the pavement running east and west through Central Park. Two of the eight tables will be wheelchair accessible.

Five council members voted in favor of accepting the bid while two voted against. Those in favor were Michael Halley, Tom Twohill, Katy Anderson, Paul Gandy and Doug Flournoy, and those against were Martha Rasmussen and Judy Ham. Rasmussen said she feels the project’s size has grown beyond what was originally planned and was concerned about that the city was incurring more costs than expected.

Halley, who has been the driving force promoting the tables, had a different view. He told The Union that the project’s total cost will be about $41,000, lower than the engineer’s estimate of $50,000 before it began. He also said that while it’s true Prospect Companies deducted $4,000 from its bid due to the city contributing labor to the project, the actual cost to the city of that labor is closer to $1,000 since the city can perform the work more cheaply than a private contractor would charge.

The bulk of the project is being paid through grants from the Greater Jefferson County Foundation, which agreed to contribute about $20,000 for the tables and another $6,000 approximately for the brick pavers. Of the remaining $15,000, half came from a local-option sales tax grant, and the other half came from a $2,500 donation from Everybody’s Whole Foods, a $2,500 donation from Fairfield Hy-Vee and the rest from private donors.

Halley said he expects the tables will be installed in early September, and possibly finished in time for Kiwanis Kids Day on Sept. 18. The four major donors to the project (including Prosper Companies itself for reducing its costs) will be commemorated in granite block at prominent locations at each of the four stations.