City council approved new policies for hiring contractors at a short meeting last night.

The code changes give the city new tools to rule out low bidders when choosing companies to do city projects.

Councilor Dave Gregory took issue with one section that lets council consider whether a contractor has unresolved disputes with the city. The language would let council use that as their sole criteria in choosing to go with a different company. Gregory thought that could lead to conflict.

"I mean, yeah, this is all for ... if we decide that we need an exception to throw this bid out," he said. "But it seems that if we’re codifying this in our ordinance -- I think it needs to be toned down a little bit."

He proposed an amendment to the language that would only allow council to consider disputes older than six months. But councilor Roger Rowland pointed out that the new rules don’t guarantee a low bidder won’t get a job just because of a dispute, or any other factor.

"If we think the conflict is great enough to cause problems in moving forward, we can throw the bidder out," Rowland said. "If it’s not a conflict that’s going to cause problems, if we think we can resolve, we can let the conflict stand even as we award the next contract."

Gregory’s amendment was voted down, and in the end, the new language passed unanimously.

Council also refined their own travel policy last night. They agreed on new language to enforce the need to complete travel reports on time, and with sufficient detail.

The new language asks the mayor to make a recommendation to council about whether someone is up to date on trip reports. But it leaves it up to councilors to decide whether a person with outstanding reports is allowed to travel, on a case-by-case basis.

Council also voted on who’ll attend one upcoming event -- the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, in Anchorage next month. They voted to send Mayor Marquardt, and one councilor, potentially Alejandro ‘Bong’ Tungul, to the meeting.

And council gave the go-ahead for starting another round of paving projects for next summer. They voted to give an extra $300,000 to PND Engineers to do design work on potential paving sites -- like Salmon Way, Gilman Road and more of East and West Broadway.

Council convenes next on Sept. 23. It’s their last meeting before the Oct. 7 local election.