NEW PARIS — New Paris Village Council discussed bids to remediate and demolish the old school building during its meeting on Monday, Nov. 4.

Susan Laux, Grants and Funding Specialist with Mote & Associates, informed council bids had been opened earlier that day. There were a total of 13 bids.

Companies were allowed to bid for the remediation portion of the building, the demolition of the building, or for both parts of the project. Laux added, this made it harder for them to tell which would be the better deal.

The low bid for the building demolition came in at $104,900.

The low bid for the remediation came in at $169,900.

A bid for a remediation and demolition package came in at $340,000.

The low bid for demolition came from Kentucky, while local companies bid significantly higher, which lead Laux to request time to research the various companies and their services.

“We would like a few days to call and talk with some of the references of some of these companies. We haven’t worked with any of them,” she said. “We feel like we need to do some research, we need to make some calls and talk with their references. They could be looking for a way to keep their people busy this winter, I don’t know — but we need to do our due diligence in doing some research on the companies, make sure other places are happy with work they’ve done.”

Council scheduled a special meeting for Thursday, Nov. 7 to discuss the bids.

John Bell with Bell Power spoke to council about the existing electricity and natural gas contract with the village and the aggregation for residential and small businesses.

He reminded council, there was an 11-month gap between the expiration for the village property contract and when aggregation went into effect. The village had to make a decision for purchasing electricity and natural gas for their contract. After that, the village did an aggregation with Bell Power. Village residents had the opportunity to purchase electricity on the same contract.

“We’re about six months away from the village’s natural gas and electricity contract [renewal]. We expect some upturns in electricity, but we’ve had some downturns in natural gas, which governs the price on electricity,” he said. “During that time frame, I wanted to come to ya’ll and propose that instead of doing a three year renewal on electricity, we do a 12-month renewal on electricity.”

Bell’s reasoning was the 12 month contract is now cheaper, because of the expected rise in electricity cost. Also, if the village does 12 months, the contract will end at the same time the village’s aggregation is up for renewal.

Council approved a motion to switch to the 12-month contract.

According to Police Chief Jeremy Schroeder, in the month of October, the NP Police Department handled 163 calls for service, made 31 reports and seven arrests, wrote 17 citations, and issued 31 warnings.

In other business:

•The village purchased salt for the coming year for snow removal, at a price of $64.38 a ton.

•Leaf pickup will begin in the next few weeks. A schedule was discussed during a special meeting on Thursday, Nov. 7.

•A credit card policy was approved by council.

•During her Sanitation Report, Councilmember Mary Jane Thomas shared information on properties which had recently been cleaned up.

New Paris Village Council will hold its next regular meeting on Monday, Dec. 2, at 7 p.m. in the NP Village Building.