The Guthrie Center City Council met earlier this week, and after some discussion, the Council decided to table talks relating to accepting a possible contractor bid for the town’s facade improvement project.

Mayor Denny Kunkle says he was surprised by the Council’s actions on Monday.

“One of our councilman said that not every (business owner) knew what their (monetary) numbers were, which… I can’t believe that.  Anyway, there were some questions on that and a couple other questions that they had, so we decided that the best thing to do was hold off on awarding the bid until we can get back with the (RDG architects).  We’ll get some of the questions answered, and then we’re going to meet again this coming Monday night with all the business owners to make sure they have no further questions so that we can try to get moving again on (the project).”

Despite this hiccup in the project process, Kunkle says he doesn’t believe it will effect when construction ultimately gets started.

“We are still under the impression that once we get this contract awarded, they’ll start (work) very soon.  These contractors have other jobs so they want to get going and get done so they can move on to their next jobs.  It shouldn’t hold anything up unless we can’t get it done Monday night and we have to postpone it for whatever reason… I cannot imagine what that (reason would be.”

Kunkle says Monday’s upcoming special City Council meeting will begin at 6pm.

If a contract bid is accepted that day, work could begin on business facades as soon as May 20th.