City not giving up on finding track operator

Some late interest in possibly operating the motocross park has prompted the city to put the operation and lease contract back out for bid.

The city previously advertised a request for a bid on the 50-acre Eldorado Valley motocross track in June. But at the July proposal due date, no bids had arrived.

With seemingly no parties interested in operating the track, the City Council was scheduled to discuss the issue at its Aug. 13 meeting. Public Works Director Scott Hansen was prepared to recommend that the course be flattened so it would no longer be a liability.

However, shortly before the meeting, Hansen said the city received interest from two potential bidders who heard about the request after the deadline had passed.

“We originally advertised in the (Las Vegas Review-Journal),” Hansen said. “And I don’t think people who are interested in running motocross tracks are reading the legal section of the (Review-Journal).”

Hansen and City Manager David Fraser then made the decision to pull the item from the council agenda, and again issue a request for project bids.

The request for proposal can be found on the Public Works department website, www.bouldercitypublicworks.org. Bids are due Sept. 26.

The city will host a presubmittal meeting Sept. 5 at 8:30 a.m. in the City Hall Large Conference Room.

“We really just want to get people together to briefly go through the (request for proposals) and ask them if they have any questions ... that’s kinda the goal,” Hansen said. “If anybody wants to go down there and visit the site we can do that, too.”

The request for proposal is the same as the one issued in June, which places new requirements on bidders that didn’t exist for the previous operator, BCMX, including a required $100,000 bond, Hansen said.

“The next company that comes in, I want them to put down a bond, so if they fold we don’t end up using tax dollars (for cleanup),” Hansen said in June.

The city claims BCMX owes roughly $50,000 for the cost of an environmental remediation performed last year. BCMX has contested this claim.

The city also is requiring that a future operator provide properly staffed private ambulances on-site when open.

BCMX did not have its own medical team, which required Boulder City paramedics to respond to calls and transport patients to Las Vegas hospitals.

The city and BCMX are entangled in two lawsuits involving injuries at the track.

City Attorney Dave Olsen said lawyers representing the family of Casey Johnson, who died after crashing his motorcycle at the track in 2010, have asked the city not to damage any evidence by altering the track.

The request not only weighed on the city’s potential flattening of the track, but may also affect a new operator, who would likely want to change the course to suit its needs.

“Any kind of a deal we enter into with a potential new operator has got to be limited by the fact that we still have this lawsuit issue unresolved,” Olsen said.

However, Olsen believes that by the time a lease with a new operator is negotiated the issue could be resolved.

The city’s lease with BCMX was signed in 2007, initially for 30 acres, and later expanded to include 50 acres of land.

Boulder City Motocross has been closed since Jan. 1, 2012, according to its website.