The Lake June Park pickleball project returns to the agenda Monday night, but after months of delays the problem now is how to actually get the project built after the Town’s procurement strategy — intended to fast-track construction — ran into significant legal and procedural concerns.
Over the past year, the Town attempted to fast track the project forward using “piggyback” contracts rather than a traditional competitive bidding process. Piggybacking allows one government agency to use contracts previously bid by another agency. According to the legal memorandum included in the agenda packet, the Town’s strategy relied primarily on two outside contracts: Excavation Point, Inc. (City of Sebring) and Nidy Sports (Duval County Public Schools). Excavation Point was to perform the site preparation and infrastructure and Nidy Sports the actual court construction.
But questions about the contracts began surfacing publicly as early as summer 2025.
By January 2026, former Town Attorney Bert Harris had warned in writing that one of the contracts being relied upon may no longer have been valid for piggyback use, according to the memorandum. Then on March 5, the Town’s current legal counsel issued a detailed review that warned the Town could face problems ranging from audit findings to grant reimbursement issues if the submitted piggyback contracts were used.
After months spent trying to accelerate construction through piggyback contracts, the Town now appears to be back at square one on procurement.
For complete details and tonight’s full agenda:
All meetings are streamed on the Town of Lake Placid Youtube Channel: