Firehouse floor: Color or no color?

A 2-2 vote delayed approval of a bid to put in a new floor slab in the Sebring Fire Rescue's downtown firehouse because the project specifications included the addition of color to the cement.

Councilman Bud Whitlock and Council President John Griffin voted to approve the measure.

Councilmen John Clark and Scott Stanley voted against approving the agreement. Councilwoman Margie Rhoades was absent from the meeting.

The bid for all concrete work inside the station from the low bidder E.O. Koch Construction was $14,248. The total bid amount was $34,166, which included outside cement work and a color additive.

The floor needed to be replaced after construction workers discovered severe weaknesses in the existing floor inside the building.

Clark said a requested color additive at a cost of $5,670 was a waste of taxpayers' money. He also questioned if it was necessary at this time to remove and replace the driveway and sidewalk at the same cost as the inside work, $14,248.

Fire Chief Brad Batz said he didn't know why the dollar amounts were the same, but said the driveway was in pretty bad shape.

Whitlock wondered why they wanted to nickel and dime the final part of the project, when the vast amount of money was already spent to renovate the historic building.

Sebring City Administrator Scott Noethlich said Thursday that the color additive would make the floor a darker gray than the regular light gray color of the cement. He also explained the higher cost.

"It's more labor intensive to pour colored concrete," he said. "Somebody at the concrete company told me that."

What they do is they pour in bags of a black powdered additive. The more they put in to the mix the darker the gray becomes, he said.