Butler City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, Feb. 25, to reject a bid on repairs for the South Monroe Street Bridge and will rebid the project.

The bid offered to council was from JF Shea Construction, Inc., offering a base bid of $299,050. The bid was cited by Mayor Bob Dandoy as being significantly over the city’s budget for the project.

“We had allotted $100,000 and it came in at $300,000 and we only had one bid,” Dandoy explained. “We’re rejecting that bid and we’re going to send it out again and see if we can get a more reasonable bid.”

The money for South Monroe Street Bridge originates from the city’s long range plan for its Butler Area Sewer Authority funds. City council accepted the long range plan at the January meeting.

Project 4 of the long range plan notes the city has “received indications” that PennDOT will take over responsibilities for a repair or replacement of the bridge. This was reaffirmed by Dandoy at the February meeting.

“It looks like PennDOT will take care of repairs on this,” Dandoy said. “It won’t happen for a couple of years, so between now and then, we’ve got to make some repairs to keep it safe and viable for traffic.”

After voting to reject the current bid on the project, the board voted unanimously to rebid the project.

In other business:

• the board approved a request from Peoples Natural Gas to repair North Church Street between West Locust and West Brady streets. Peoples Gas will replace the brick road with blacktop.

Before the issue was brought to the council, a letter was sent to the residents of the street to ensure no opposition against the plan. According to Dandoy, only two residents responded and neither had objections.

• approved advertising for website design and development. According to councilman Don Shearer, there are about 15 total requests for the city’s website and no current budget set.

“We’re going into this one just saying ‘let’s see what it takes,’” Shearer said.