County Selects Weishuhn Engineering Services for Mitigation Grant
Fayette County Commissioners Court selected Weishuhn Engineering Inc. of Columbus to provide engineering services for a $4.8 million mitigation grant from the Texas General Land Office (GLO).
The grant is part of the State’s longterm recovery efforts following the devastating flooding from Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The County advertised a request for qualifications from engineers back in early November. Three firms submitted responses to the request: BEFCO Engineering of La Grange, Weishuhn Engineering, and GLS Engineering of Lufkin. Fayette County Emergency Management Coordinator Angela Hahn presented the proposals to the Commissioners Court at their meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 22.
“All three were very good proposals,” Hahn told the Commissioners. “Since these were requests for qualifications, there is not a price associated with it. That will be negotiated based on whatever projects you decide to go after.”
A committee comprised of Hahn, Pct. 4 Commissioner Drew Brossmann, County Court Administrator Cassie Austin, County Inspector Clint Sternadel, and County Floodplain Manager Amber Hielscher scored the three proposals. Hahn said all three scored very close to each other, but Weishuhn Engineering scored the highest.
“Our recommendation is that we go with Weishuhn because they are on the Historically Underutilized Business (HUD) list, and that’s important. It’s a designation that (GLO) wanted to see us use. The company out of East Texas looked great on paper, but we don’t have any working relationship with them. Clint’s only concern about BEFCO is that they have so many projects going on right now, so it might be hard to move in a timely manner.”
Commissioners voted unanimously to select Weishuhn Engineering. The County has not yet decided what kind of projects it will use the grant funding, which totals $4,810,100. Terms of the grant stipulate that just over half of the amount, $2,405,100, must be used to benefit low to moderate income areas of the County.