City Council to hear options for refit of Digby Island Ferry tonight

City Council will hear of their options for the refit of the
Digby Island Ferry set for next spring

One of the items of note on tonight's agenda for Prince Rupert City Council will be a report from the City's Manager of Transportation and Economic Development, with Mr. Paul Venditelli who will outline the options for the city when it comes to next refit for the Digby Island Ferry, the city's link to the Airport on the Island.

As we outlined back in July, the City had put the process out for a Request for proposals at that time, with the final list coming down to three candidates for the work to be done.

In the report for Council, Mr. Venditelli will outline the nature of the three bids and amount that they have submitted for the work:

Canadian Maritime Engineering of Nanaimo -- $481,772.31
Allied Shipbuilders of North Vancouver -- $352,308.25 
Point Hope Maritime of Victoria -- $347,336.46

The report notes that each of the companies that submitted a bid are qualified and capable of doing the work and to ensure that the Airport Ferry maintains its certified status.

For a recommendation to Council  the Manager of Transportation is recommending that Council accept the lowest quoted bid, that from Point Hope of Victoria.

Related to the refit work, is the requirement of the city to retain the services of a barge operator to deliver passengers and cargo to and from Digby Island while the refit is underway.

The price for that service that the city has received is expected to come in at $264,000, which when combined with the cost of the refit makes for a total cost to the City estimated to be at $611,336.46

That figure is above the previously estimated budget for the project and will require an additional 10,000 dollars to cover the variance, something that will need to be included as part of the ferry's operation budget.

In the Request for Proposals by the City from July, the timeline for the work was to be one month stretching from April 1 to 30th of 2019.

Council members will discuss those notes and then if they move forward with the work, will the decide the fate of the bid award for the ferry work.

In 2014, the City of Prince Rupert chose to make use of the Alaska Ship and Drydock facility in Ketchikan, Alaska for the work, that refit came in close to 80,000 dollars over the estimate of the time, though the original bid had come in at 458,000 some thirty thousand dollars less than the next bid.

The decision to use the Alaskan yard for the 2015 job had given cause for Councillor Thorkelson to raise a few questions about the options available to the city for the work back in 2014.

You can review Mr. Venditelli's report related to the current bid process for 2018/19 from the Agenda package for tonight's Council session.

For more notes on Council's work for tonight, see our preview article here, a wider overview of civic issues and City Council's discussion topics through the year can be found on Council Discussion page here.


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