A year and a half effort to keep more of our region’s tax dollars local and create a level playing field for local contractors to win their fair share of construction work has come to a successful conclusion.

This past Saturday, the Board of Trustees awarded the contracts for the NCC expansion project to the local team, who gave us a “guaranteed maximum price” of $13.2 million, which was under budget. I couldn’t be more thrilled — and it was an honor to be a part of bringing a big chunk of our local tax dollars home to our local region.

Nevada County’s building industry stands to reap a significant economic boost this summer, with last Saturday’s official awarding of two major construction contracts at Sierra College’s Nevada County campus…

Trustees made a pledge to include local bidders on this phase of construction, Nevada County-area trustee Aaron Klein said. The process, which began in February 2008, included an audit of potential local bidders and meeting with the Nevada County Contractors Association to determine if local contractors could handle such a bid.

“It created a climate to give local contractors a chance to bid,” Klein said. The addition of Clark and Sullivan, a construction firm with offices in Reno, Las Vegas and Sacramento that has an extensive background in building educational facilties, helped the process.

At first, Klein said, “We didn’t think there would be a local general contractor that had the scale and the school construction expertise to win this contract.”

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