Photo by Joseph Bell
Spring Creek Township’s supervisors admitted Monday night that they mistakenly allowed a township project to be completed without putting it out to bid. The elected officials recently shelled out $14,900 to repair a section of Spring Creek Road.

Spring Creek Twp. bid for repair of bump in the road falls under residents' scrutiny.

By Joseph Bell

Staff Writer

Spring Creek Township’s supervisors drew recent ire after a miscue regarding the repair of a dangerous bump on a descent on Spring Creek Road.
“We had David Briggs do a job down here for us and it was brought to our attention that we should’ve bid the job out,” said chairman Richard Wittman during a recent board meeting. “We were given a price and we went with it.
“We found out that we made a mistake and should’ve bid the job out. We went with what we thought was a fair price, $14,900.”
According to Briggs, an area of the road was dug out, unveiling a heavy spring that was causing the pavement to rise, creating a dangerous bump on a curve.
“We took it down about five feet and put the drain in on a slope and the water just ran through it,” Briggs said. “We drained it to the other side of the road. We matted it and rolled it over.”
After the repaving, the end result has been an endless drainage of water down the hillside.
But despite the successful job, Wittman said he admits that the supervisors made the wrong move in not putting the project out to bid.
“We’ve heard rumblings and we were wrong,” Wittman said. “At the time, we didn’t know it.
“We thought we didn’t have to go to bid until $25,000. We went off the assumption of our salt building.”
Initially, the project to repair the bump came out of the township’s general fund. Meanwhile, the new salt building came from Liquid Fuels Funds.
“The salt building was Liquid Fuels Funds, and we learned that $25,000 and up, you have to put that up for bid,” Wittman said. “It was just an assumption on our part that since that road project was under $25,000, we didn’t have to put it out to bid.
“But we went back and checked and saw that it is. We learned different things and the man that does nothing makes no mistakes.”