Every summer, the City of Peekskill puts out a list of the streets it can't apologize for anymore. This year there are sixteen of them — South Division, Leda Drive, Depew, Short Street, on down to Patrician Court — bundled into Bid No. 2026-003, the city's annual resurfacing contract. Sealed bids are due at the City Clerk's office by 11:30 a.m. on August 24; the pre-bid walkthrough is August 19 at City Hall.

So what's the job? The unit-price schedule tells you in seven lines: 4,792 tons of NYS Type 6F top course, 17,663 square yards of milling — with hauling and discarding the millings priced as separate items — 1,870 gallons of tack coat, 67 manhole castings to raise, maintenance of traffic, and a $30,000 contingency every bidder carries identically. And the milling spec is precise where it counts: two inches deep at the curb, tapering to nothing at the seven-foot mark, so the new two-inch mat sits flush and the curb reveal stays honest.

“The street list tells you where the work is. The spec book tells you who makes money doing it.”

Now the traps, because there are two good ones. First, the compliance clause: run the mat thick, and if tonnage comes in more than ten percent over the city's estimate, the city simply doesn't pay the overage — and they measure it street by street, not on the total. So a crew that's sloppy on Leda Drive can't average it out on Raymond Street. Second, the castings: Con Edison's and Verizon's structures in the roadway are your problem to coordinate, and you're expected to negotiate with the utilities to get paid for raising them. And if the utility won't pay? The structures still have to be at grade before paving starts. That sentence has eaten more paving margin than asphalt prices ever will.

The posted plan-holder list shows ten firms so far — a floor, not a census; agencies do not always publish complete lists — and it reads like a map of the market: the Westchester paving establishment — Montesano Brothers, ELQ Industries, Morano Brothers, Avello, Pat Paving — plus a contingent of New York City GCs driving north for the work. Here's the thing about municipal paving tabs: they tend to land tight, because everybody buys asphalt from the same plants at the same posted prices. The spread gets made on trucking, traffic protection, and how carefully you read the two clauses above.

It's a small contract by the standards of this page, with a $1,000-a-day liquidated-damages clock and a two-year guarantee on the back end. But small public work is where reading the book carefully pays best. We'll publish the tab when it opens on the 24th.