The Flint City Council has voted to move forward with their final phase of the FAST Start Program.
According to ABC 12, the City Council voted to use Lang Constructors and WT Stevens to finish phase six of the project. Flint has used five contractors to handle this project in previous years.
A project manager from one former company spoke out and said there is a major issue with moving forward with only two companies.
“It took 8 months to get through 10 zones with five contractors. You have 17 weeks from today to get to the end of this phase. If you're going to do that with two contractors, I can tell you I don't know how you could do that,” said Joe Parks, Goyette Mechanical Project Manager.
According to ABC 12, Parks was the project manager for his company during phase five portion of this program. Their concern is that there is too much work to be done in so little time. According to ABC 12, the city's goal is to have all the lead lines replaced at the end of this July.
Flint's Department of Public Works Director Rob Bincsik says there are four to eight thousand lines that still need to be replaced. According to ABC 12, these lines are spread over 10 zones across the city, and each company is getting five zones to work on towards that July goal.
These two companies will be paid between $5.2 and $5.6 million each for the work.
According to ABC 12, despite city council concerns about the short time frame to get the work done city leaders are feeling good about their plan.
"I think it is an optimistic goal. But that is the goal that we've been directed to approach, and that's what we are going to try to do,” Bincsik said to ABC 12.
He also says contractors Lang and WT Stevens have told them they will get the work done by the July deadline.