Explanation:
As part of their "District Plan," the Columbus Public Schools are currently planning to renovate 38 of their schools over the next 15-year period. As part of this process, Columbus Public Schools has proposed to make certain modifications to adjacent public roadways for the purpose of improving pedestrian and vehicular ingress and egress to these same schools.
Section 901.01(f) of Columbus City Codes, 1959, currently requires entities wishing to make such roadway improvements to enter into an "Agreement to Improve Streets" with the Public Service Director and to provide to the City a surety bond, or letter of credit, equal to the amount estimated to complete each of these roadway improvements. However, as a public entity, the Columbus Public Schools are also required to obtain a surety bond, or letter of credit, from their contractor(s) for all proposed work, including work within the public right-of-way on City streets. Therefore, the current requirements of the City and Columbus Public Schools would result in these proposed public roadway improvements being bonded twice, thereby doubling the Columbus Public Schools' cost for ensuring this work is completed in a satisfactory manner. Such dual bonding is estimated to cost the Columbus Public Schools approximately $500,000 over the next 15 year period, over and above the cost of bonding this work once, while providing little or no additional benefit.
In an effort to eliminate this additional expense, this ordinance authorizes the Public Service Director to waive on a project by project basis the surety bonding/letter of credit requirements associated with Section 901.01(f) of Columbus City Code, 1959, from within future "Agreements To Improve Streets" between the City and the Columbus Public Schools for public roadway improvements associated with the Columbus Public Schools' "District Plan" and each agreement shall remain in effect for so long as the Columbus Public Schools remain in compl...
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