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Parks & Recreation Committee <br /> Meeting Minutes 08-04-10 <br /> <br />in over $1.3 million. Obviously some things will need to be changed. Mr. Statz will outline how he <br />could restructure the bid to put more items of the entry park in as alternates. Hopefully the ability to <br />drop some things and scale back the park together with extending the completion date to the end of <br />next season will bring the cost down within acceptable levels. The best bet may be to set the park up in <br />a way that some of the amenities can be added in later years after park fees begin coming in again. <br /> <br />Another problem that has come to my attention is the significant amount of landscaping in the plan. I <br />should have raised the issue before, but I am concerned that we may be taking on much more <br />operating expense than we can handle in the budget. I suggest that the landscaping be revised to <br />focus on a couple of areas along the road, but substantially reduce the perimeter landscaping. We <br />simply do not have the staff to take on large amounts of additional work. <br /> <br />Mr. Statz informed the committee that on Tuesday, July 13, 2010, bids were opened for the <br />Transportation Enhancement Grant Regional Trail Link Project. Only two (2) bids were received and <br />they were both considerably higher than the engineer’s estimate. With the bids as they are, and the <br />amount of federal funding capped, it would be difficult for the City to afford its share of the project. <br />With this in mind, on Wednesday, July 14, 2010, the City Council requested that Anoka County reject <br />all bids. At a meeting of the County’s Public Works committee on July 19, 2010, the County followed <br />through on this request; rejecting all bids and authorizing a re-bid of the project. This leaves two <br />options. The first option would be to abandon the project altogether. The other is to re-bid the project <br />with some modifications to the bid in an effort to receive lower bids and to allow more flexibility in <br />award of the project. At the last City Council meeting, the direction from the Council was to return <br />with a proposed format for the re-bidding of the project. Included in the packet was a memo from Mr. <br />Statz documenting the proposed changes to the bidding documents, value engineering (using less <br />costly materials), additional alternates, engineering scope for re-bid and an updated project schedule. <br /> <br />Mr. Statz informed the committee that there were 22 requests for bids, but yet only 2 bids were <br />submitted for the project so he asked bidders or prospective bidders why they came in so high or were <br />not interested in the project. The reasons were varied and somewhat vague, but it appears the <br />November 24, 2010 completion date of the project and the complexity (fountain, bridge work, <br />grading, paving, retaining walls, landscaping, multiple disciplines for any one company) were the <br />deterrents. Contractors had portions of the job quoted out to other companies instead of just one <br />contractor taking it. One of the contractors they said there were no problems getting quotes from <br />pavers, but the rest of the project was more difficult. Contractors are also busy right now with <br />stimulus money available for street projects. <br /> <br />The proposed re-bid would extend the completion date allowing the contractor flexibility to begin <br />construction in 2010, but not require completion until the fall of 2011. Certain restrictions would be <br />incorporated to minimize disturbances to neighborhoods for extended periods of time. For example, <br />we would expect that if work on a certain trail segment were begun in 2010, it would be finished in <br />that same year. Mayor Capra reminded the committee the City will not receive reimbursement for this <br />project until 2012. Mayor Capra stated she was disappointed by the bid results and would really like <br />to see the project re-bid and begun yet this year. Mr. Statz said the other part of the re-bid plan is to <br />get the base bid down by adding more items as alternates. Committee Member Seeley questioned <br />whether there was any possibility of broadening the area of bids, such as looking for contractors <br />outside of the immediate area to which Mr. Statz replied the bid already goes everywhere including <br />out of the metro area. <br /> <br />2 of 6 <br /> <br />