Bid on new Silver City schoolhouse to be selected

Silver City residents who have pushed hard for a replacement of the Silver City Schoolhouse community center are breathing a collective sigh of relief now that the county has received four bids to rebuild the historic building.

The low bid of $763,078 was from Building Solutions LLC. The next lowest bid was $832,700 by Bison Construction, followed by Devcon Construction at $872,000 and Reyman Brothers Construction, whose bid was $934,929.

County Commissioner Bob Milz said the commission will vote on bids Thursday.

"We're very relieved and we're very happy," said town board member Gayle Sherman.

Archaeology Professor Ron Reno, a Silver City resident who supervised much of the salvage of historic material from the burned out building, said completion should be done 245 calendar days after the notice to proceed is posted.

Reno said community leaders in the tiny historic mining town were so optimistic that a planned deluge of Silver City residents on the commissioner's meeting has been called off.

"We have no reason to think that anyone is going back on what they have pledged," Reno said. "We're optimistic enough that we're calling off the march of Silver City on Yerington."

Saying the residents of Silver City have waited long enough, Lyon County commissioners in October voted to begin the process of rebuilding the schoolhouse, and are considering possible legal action against the county's third-party insurance carrier, Lloyds of London.

Milz said the county has hired attorneys but no action has been taken yet.

"The first step was to put it out to bid using the Cathexes plan and then use that as a basis to argue the lawsuit, if it gets to that," he said. Cathexes Inc. of Reno was the architect that drew up the plans for the replacement building.

Milz said it was possible the issue could go to arbitration.

"There was an arbitration procedure that we could have asked for that still might happen," he said.

Milz said in the arbitration, each side would present its evidence based on the same plans and the arbitrator would decide between the offer by third-party insurance carrier Lloyds of London of $453,000, or the bid that will be approved by the county Thursday.

On July 7, 2004, the historic Silver City Schoolhouse community center, built in 1867, burned in a fire believed to be sparked by county employees using welding torches to install air conditioning.

• Contact reporter Karen Woodmansee at kwoodmansee@nevadaappeal.com or 882-2111 ext. 351.

If you go

WHAT: Lyon County

Commission meeting

WHEN: 9 a.m. Thursday

WHERE: 27 S. Main St.,

Yerington

CALL: (775) 463-6531