Buckley city council members signed off on a trimmed-down redesign of the city’s much-anticipated Multi-Use Sports Court last week after eye-popping bid prices last year forced them to drop a few bells and whistles.

They made that decision at their March 8 meeting, which kicked off with the promotion of Buckley PD officer Arthur Fetter to the role of sergeant. Family and friends of Fetter packed the council chambers as mayor Beau Burkett read Fetter his oath of office and made the promotion official.

Later in the night, the council heard from Buckley PD chief Kurt Alfano on the department’s new public outreach efforts.

The council’s main dish, so to speak, was their unanimous approval of the city’s request to go out to bid again for the upcoming Multi-Use Sports Court, a proposed modern recreational facility that’s been on Buckley’s radar since, at least, when it was listed in the city’s 2015 Parks and Recreation Plan.

The court is planned for a currently-unused parcel of land wedged between the Foothills Trail and Highway 410 near the Youth Activities Center. When finished, the roughly 8750 square foot installation will feature two courts for basketball, one full-sized and another three-quarters sized. It will also include pickle-ball and general “open play” area for kids.

The project is budgeted through the city’s Parks Capital fund. $75,000 of the cost will come from a state Recreation and Conservation grant.

But a confluence of factors has boosted the project’s price tag — and project costs in general — higher than Buckley expected.

The city solicited bids for the project back in September with an engineer’s cost estimate of $140,000. The bids they got back were around double that price — $295,500 from A Advanced Service and $269,900 from Diversified Holdings NW.

Supply chain issues contributed to that price spike, City Administrator Dave Schmidt said. The timing of the bid advertisement likely played a role too, he said, since it came late in the construction season.

So the City Council rejected those pricy bids in December and asked city staff to trim the project down to a more reasonable price point. The city obliged, and staff came back during the March 8 meeting with a few changes.

1: Removing the bleachers and bleacher pads.

2: Replaced some brick paver flooring with grass.

3: Shrink the chain-link fence from 12’ to 10’.

4: Only paint the the center court logo and maroon-and-gold striping, leaving the rest of the asphalt paving unpainted.

5: Only lighting the full court, not the attached practice court.

6: Shifting the entire court about 130 feet south, closer to the Youth Center.

Estimating the updated cost of the court at this point is difficult, Schmidt said, due to “the many unknowns surrounding inflation, fuel costs and supply chain disruptions.” He said the city would likely have updated cost estimates sometime this week.

But here’s the good news: The bleachers and bleacher pads can be added in at any time, as well as the brick pavers. Fencing height will likely stay fixed, Schmidt said, and ditching the acrylic finish on the court reduces both construction and maintenance costs.

Whether the price pinch will get better or worse anytime soon is “hard to determine,” he said, given the rising inflation and fuel costs the entire country is going through. But city planners all over the state are likely pinching their pennies these days.

“I can safely say that if the modifications had not been made, the overall cost would be even higher than it was in 2021, when low bids were $129,920.57 (92.8 percent) over the engineer’s estimate for project construction,” Schmidt said.

Councilmembers Marvin Sundstrom and Amanda Burbank raised safety concerns during the meeting over the decision to lower the fence height from 12 to 10 feet, since the court itself stands only about 35 to 40 feet from the busy Highway 410.

Schmidt clarified during the meeting that 10 feet is the standard height for basketball fencing — the 12 foot height in the original bid request seemed to have been an anomaly. He added that the city plans to finish building a second six-foot fence that runs between the court and the highway, providing a second shield in between basketballers and motorists.

Now that the council has given its blessing, Buckley can take another crack at soliciting bids for the project. With any luck, the city will find an offer that doesn’t break the bank.

BUCKLEY PD EXPANDS PUBLIC OUTREACH

Police Chief Kurt Alfano announced a number of new public outreach efforts by the department during the city council meeting.

The department plans to assign two officers as Public Information Officers, a role that will see them respond to both the public and the news media like the Courier-Herald for information on breaking crime news and other PD business. Those upcoming PIOs will recieve training in mid-April, Alfano said.

The department is now also on social media, Alfano said, and will share updates on Facebook and Twitter. Buckley PD can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BuckleyPolice/ and on Twitter at twitter.com/BuckleyPolice.

Finally, Buckley will begin hosting “Coffee With a Cop,” starting just down the street at Anchor House Coffee Roasters. It’ll be a chance to meet more casually with the department and share thoughts or questions over a cup of coffee, Alfano said. That first meeting will take place March 31 from 6 to 7:30 p.m., and further meetings will likely be held quarterly, Alfano said.