Kiowa's City Council is one step closer to starting construction of the City Hall/Police Department Renovation project that's been discussed for over a year.

At a special meeting Monday night, Sam Johnson, an engineer with BG Consultants who is contracted with the city for this project attended the meeting. He was there to award the bid for the project after opening sealed bids at the city office last week.

After the lengthy process to get bids, only one bid was received in this final process. It was from Minjares & Sons Construction LLC in Alva who submitted a much higher bid in the beginning when all bids were thrown out and the specs were redone to make it a less expensive project.

Johnson said Minjares' base bid was for $406,774 and is on the high side and included everything. There were several alternate parts that could be done at a later date. The engineer tweaked the bid and made it $311,652.

Mayor Bill Watson said the project will cost more than that because of necessary roof repairs by Roof America. He said the cost will be more like $375,000.

To finance the project through a bond, Watson said he's spoken to someone from Ransom Capital. A representative from Ransom will attend the next council meeting to explain it further. For example, how many year pay off with which interest rate is best for the city.

“If we're gonna do it, we need to do it,” Councilman Russ Molz said. “The cost increases every time we wait.”

At Johnson's recommendation, the council voted to approve a Notice of Award of the bid to Minjares & Sons Construction LLC in Alva. The amount is $311,652. This is contingent on many factors that Johnson listed. Such as, the contractor may not have $200,000 up front. The council vote was 4-1 with Councilman Brian Hill casting the single no vote.

The meeting Monday night was to start at 7 p.m. However, there was no quorum at that time. Seated at the head of the council table was Mayor Watson and Clerk Trish Brewer. Councilmen present were: Brent Shaffer, R.L. Simpson and Tom Wells. Police Chief Houston sat at the table as did City Superintendent John Duvall.

After the mayor and Brewer contacted Councilmen Russ Molz and Hill they arrived. Hill walked in at 7:30 and the meeting was called to order at 7:33. Molz arrived at 7:40.