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HomeMy WebLinkAbout01.08.07 Work Session Minutes Council Workshop Minutes January 8, 2007 Mayor Soderberg called the meeting to order at 5:30 p.m. Present: Also Present: Soderberg, Fogarty, McKnight, Pritzlaff, Wilson Peter Herlofsky, City Administrator; Lee Mann, City Engineer/Public Works Director; Cynthia Muller, Executive Assistant Michelle Lease and Mark Hanson, Bonestroo Audience: Jeff Thelen The purpose of the workshop was to review the contract with Bonestroo for engineering services. City Administrator Herlofsky reviewed the current contract with Bonestroo which was effective January 2005. Regarding general engineering services, there are four separate items for services. They are general engineering and in-house personnel which is non-project work, general engineering for smaller city projects such as the seal coat projects. This is why the cost for general engineering can fluctuate. The retainer does not change month to month. The next item is city projects and the fourth item is development review and inspection which is charged to the developer. If the City Engineer position were a City employee, the duties being charged a retainer would be assigned to the City Engineer. The projects not charged against a retainer would be a consultant on retainer from an engineering company. City Administrator Herlofsky explained the spreadsheet showing costs of engineering personnel for various projects. Development projects are billed to the City and costs are passed on to the developer. In the future, monthly reports will be broken down by project. Councilmember Wilson would like to see the project cost compared to what Council approved. This would enable Council to see ifthe project is over or under budget. He needs to see a perspective around the numbers. Staffwill prepare a spreadsheet for all current projects comparing the current costs vs approved costs with a running total. Councilmember Pritzlaff noted the contract contains an insurance section and asked why the issues with the mill and overlay project were not turned in to insurance. City Administrator Herlofsky noted there is also a dispute resolution section in the contract. That is the process that would be followed. Councilmember Pritzlaff also noted the contract provides for construction survey staking. This would involve the Spruce Street extension. Bonestroo does performance reviews with 80 clients each year. They applauded the Council for doing this review of engineering services. City Engineer Mann presented a list of projects Bonestroo has done for the City for 1997 - 2006, the people on the Bonestroo team, and the number of people who have worked on projects for 2006. Bonestroo would like to do an annual performance review with the City Administrator. Councilmember Pritzlaffwould like the Council to do the performance review as they are the ones approving the proj ects. Mayor Soderberg noted we hire the City Administrator to do that. If there is an issue with the contract, Council Workshop Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 2 that is one thing, but performance is up to the City Administrator. Councilmember McKnight agreed the City Administrator should do the review, but with Council input. Councilmember Wilson stated he still needs to understand the context of the numbers. City Administrator Herlofsky noted the engineering costs could be plugged into the project costs. The project report showing the original estimate, construction cost, engineering cost, legal cost, etc. would tie into this. Councilmember Wilson stated another component is how does the developer see the costs; are they fair and understandable. City Engineer Mann noted they receive very few complaints from developers regarding the cost. The City of Farmington is very important to Bonestroo and to City Engineer Mann and they want to continue to service Farmington. City Engineer Mann stated he would like to change the manner in which he will be serving Farmington. In January 2008 he will be stepping down from the City Engineer/Public Works Director position. However, he would like to continue to serve Farmington. This will allow the City time to make plans for the transition and to include this information in the 2008 budget. He is currently the Client Service Manager for Farmington and he is also the City Engineer/Public Works Director. In 2008 he would be the City's main contact with Bonestroo. Another option is for Bonestroo to supply another person for the position he currently holds, or for the City to fill the position with a City employee. There could also be other options. He would be the head of engineering services Bonestroo supplies to Farmington. He would office out ofRoseville which would be a more common way of supplying services. The two issues this year are the mill and overlay project in Sunnyside and the Spruce Street extension for Vermillion River Crossing. City Administrator Herlofsky noted there is another issue with computation for the mill and overlay project which will be brought to Council. Councilmember Pritzlaff stated his biggest issue is with the pavement management rating sheets. Council did not have the rating sheets for the mill and overlay project when the project was first brought to them. The second set of ratings showed all but one ofthe streets were significantly worse than the first ratings. Using the second set of ratings, it should have been a full reconstruct. So in the end we did the wrong project. Ifhe would have seen the first ratings, showing the streets did not require a mill and overlay, he would have voted no for the project. Regarding the Spruce Street extension, there was an issue with the survey staking. A portion of the road was constructed on another person's property. An offer has been made to the land owner, but Councilmember Pritzlaff does not feel the City should have to pay. If the land owner accepts the offer, he will not approve it. Councilmember Wilson spoke about the Spruce Street extension. One of Council's jobs is when a project is approved, he has to hold people accountable. There are things going on which Council will have to vote on and which they seem to have no control over. It concerns him there is no accountability. As far as the mill and overlay project, Council has to ask for information or find out from someone else the information is available. The benefit of having Bonestroo is having people and money to protect the City when projects are not going as they should. Councilmember McKnight stated regarding the Spruce Street extension, he feels he still does not have enough information as to how this happened. He cannot ask the people of Farmington to pay for this mistake. He had a resident inform him of the issue. Communication on this was lacking. Council Workshop Minutes January 8, 2007 Page 3 Councilmember Fogarty noted during her first four years on Council, they did not have one problem. She does not know what can be done about the mill and overlay project at this point. She wanted to know when things do go wrong, at what point does Bonestroo step up and say someone made a mistake and here is what we are going to do. Council has not heard that answer on these two projects. Council needed to know at what point they will get that and what it will be. (Councilmember Pritzlaffleft the workshop at 6:53 p.m.) Mayor Soderberg stated he has had eight years of experience with Bonestroo. With Spruce Street there was a mistake. Long term, that parcel still will be acquired by the City somewhere in the future when the project goes to Pilot Knob Road. As far as the mill and overlay project, he lived it, and it is not as bad as Council is making it. The pavement management program is an internal tool. No one knows how to read and understand a pavement management program. It is an engineering tool used by engineers to make recommendations. To look at two different documents from two different dates and say we did the wrong project is foolishness. The mill and overlay project had problems, but they were not as bad as we are making it. After 10 years of service, there were four mistakes, two of which Bonestroo stepped in immediately. The mill and overlay project was a City project and a City employee was the engineer of record. Mayor Soderberg had no issues with Bonestroo. City Engineer Mann suggested scheduling another meeting to review the mill and overlay project and the Spruce Street extension project from beginning to end with the full Council. Councilmember Wilson stated he is looking for how did this happen, what could it cost, and where do we go from here. Other than these two projects, he has been extremely pleased with Bonestroo. He does not need to be the first person, but wants to be one of the first six to hear about something that has gone wrong. As far as Spruce Street, he does not know that the City will be acquiring that road in the future; it might be a developer. City Administrator Herlofsky stated as far as the mill and overlay project, the final appearance is working well. Councilmember Wilson noted the cost to date is a small amount over the CIP amount. Mayor Soderberg stated we have a contract with Bonestroo in place for 2007. City Administrator Herlofsky will talk with Bonestroo about options for the future, continue as the existing situation, or the cost of the City hiring our own Engineer and using Bonestroo or another consultant for engineering services. Councilmember Wilson stated it has to be what is in the best interest of the City, residents and developers. One thing for this year is to make sure there is a lot of communication, even if it is the worst possible news. MOTION by Fogarty, second by McKnight to adjourn at 7:09 p.m. APIF, MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully submitted, (1 ~?-Y7~ // (/ Cynthia Muller Executive Assistant