The Mitchell City Council approves a $75,000 contract for Pro Contracting to install the Corn Palace Murals.
Pro Contracting is a Mitchell-based company that provides excavation, steel erection and concrete work in the area. Funds will come out of the city’s Corn Palace fund.
Now, the company replaces part-time workers who decorated the murals from September through March last year. The cost for those wages was $43,000.
Joe Schroeder is the Public Works Director and City Engineer for the city. He said of the nine murals, “The Corn Palace staff will do the grasses around, and they will also do the corn that’s on front, the banners. It will strictly be the square, rectangular murals."
A primary driver behind the contract is to get the murals finished quicker.
Schroeder was asked if there were penalties if the project isn’t done by the set Nov. 15 deadline. He said the city has a fail-safe in that situation.
“If they don’t perform the work, there would be the bond there that we could go back on. We did keep the bonding requirements in the quote for this project. Since it’s a first-time, we’re not exactly sure exactly how it’s going to go, first-time project, so that’s why we requested the bond,” Schroeder said.
He said that with a local contractor, the hope is it doesn’t get to that point.
