County Restructuring Failed Mowing Program

Sarasota County's failed contractual mowing program is ready to rev up a restructured version.

County government will now divide the county into four mowing areas instead of three and each area will be bid and awarded separately where before all three zones could be awarded with one contract.

The mowing program failed because the bids were too low and the contractor either didn't complete the work or performed a shabby job, The Herald-Tribune reported:

The contract would cover roughly 2,400 acres along roads and in medians, and other land throughout Sarasota County, including the landfill — in many cases in cycles of 36 times per year. The winning bidder also would be responsible for picking up litter, weed-eating and edging.

The county's annual budget: $2.5 million. They typically paid contractors in the past about that much, but without all the extras that were added into the new contract.

The lowest bidder, Bloomings Landscape and Turf Management of Sarasota, offered a price even less than the budgeted amount — $1.85 million.

Bloomings managers assured skeptical county staff several times that they could do the work for that amount of money, and county employees in turn told that to commissioners.

But they could not do the work.

"We're committed to maintaining our roadways and medians to the standard citizens expect," said Christine Robinson, Sarasota County Commission Chair in a news release. "We appreciate their patience as we've worked to address the mowing problems. We expect the new mowing contracts to provide the best mowing performance for taxpayers' dollars."

The county focused the contracts on mowing and created districts to increase performance and contract accountability, according to Dave Cash, Director of Operations and Maintenance. The county previously awarded a single contract countywide, which included numerous non-mowing requirements. The contracts are for six-month periods and will be re-solicited for three-year agreements.

The four areas are:

• Rural North - Storm Tech Inc., Sarasota
• Urban North - Contract is expected to be awarded next week
• Rural South - Reynold's Mowing Inc., Venice
• Urban South - Rightmire's Land Services, North Port

A mowing schedule will be available on the Sarasota County website at www.scgov.net. Mowing information also is available on the county's Facebook page and through Twitter. Residents can reach Facebook and sign up for Twitter from the county's home page.

During the next two weeks, residents can expect to see mowing in the following areas:

• Rural North - Fruitville Road (Coburn Road to Verna Road), Singletary Road, Verna Road, Myakka Road, Wilson Road, Lena Lane, Murphy Road, Shannon Road, Carlton Road, Hancock Road, Coburn Road, Sarasota Center Boulevard.
• Urban North - Fruitville Road (Coburn Road to McIntosh Road), McIntosh Road, University Parkway, Myrtle Street and Beneva Road.
• Rural South - Border Road area, East Laurel area, River Road, Winchester Boulevard, Warm Mineral Springs.
• Urban South- South River Road, Pine Street, State Road 776, Venice Avenue, Venice E. Boulevard., Englewood area residential streets, Center Road, Jacaranda Boulevard., Shamrock Boulevard., Venice Bypass, U.S. 41 S, Harbor Drive, Pinebrook Road, South Venice residential streets. 

The county anticipates it will take 30 months to catch up on the neglected mowing, and will even use county government workers to supplement the contractors to catch up on mowing in the Urban North Zone.

Those crews will be mowing on University Parkway, Myrtle Street and Beneva Road.