Public Works Meeting

When I got here, they were in the midst of discussing bike lanes and traffic calming on Strawberry Hill rd. The gist, according to Dick Linnartz and Hal Alvord is that the DOT takes a year to review projects and that part of the problem is that the people left in DOT are demoralized and fairly green, as in they read stuff out of textbooks and make decisions. Well, that explains everything.

Lindstrom is pushing roundabouts, and Alvord jumps in to explain the difference between traffic circles and roundabouts. Roundabouts in Alvord’s view, would entail eminent domain to widen the road. Linnartz goes into detail on the differences. Traffic circles require vehicles to stop and then enter, rotaries let people pass through clear, and roundabouts just merge all the traffic.

Krummel moves them along on roads and maintenance. Nursery street was the last street in this years program for paving. They are looking at 2 million, roughly, for paving next year. The price of asphalt according to Alvord, just went up 36%. There’s a discussion on why the price of oil hasn’t brought the price of asphalt down. O&G and Tilcon are the only two asphalt manufacturers. O&G closed the Norwalk plant, but Alvord says that didn’t impact Norwalk since the specs called for Asphalt made in Stamford.Krummel confirms that winter patching is not included in the report. Alvord says that they are looking at doing crack sealing in house.

Hempstead brings up that he drives certain roads that have the same pot holes. Crescent street is the example. Alvord says that they are planning to realign and redo Crescent street. Alvord says they don’t do delaminations, which he explained is when a layer of ashphlat peels off, and the underlying asphalt remains, a patch won’t work because the patch will be pulled out. A pit hole, by contrast, goes all the way down to dirt.

Hempstead asks why the garbage men aren’t calling in pot holes. Alvord says that some do. Bondi suggets that Hempstead call 854-3400 himself. Hempstead says that he does. Straniti mentions an abandoned bicycle n Ponus ave, Alvord jokes that its the Broadriver association, and the room chuckles. Then there’s discussion on how residents should pick up stuff and bring them to the transfer station and that transfer station employees will help unload the large items.

Krummel moves to the next item which is Roawayton ave and that status.

Sidewalks and curbing. No discussion.

WPCA, no discussion. Hempstead is anxiously awaiting item 67. I have no idea what they are talking about.

Haviland Deck, completed December 5th 2008, and a ribbon cutting ceremony on December 18th. Alvord says they had an excellent contractor and that there was more work but it was within budget.

Krummel asks about the SoNo buinsess area and the repair of the Strafolino bridge. The DOT is still tweaking. The DOT asked for the bridge to be closed December 20-21 but Alvord said no way, and that the Mayor is aware and that the City’s position is that they do the closure in the spring. Hempstead said he got a call about 10 pm about the bridge was going to be closed. Alvord said that they weren’t supposed to. Straniti asks who got on the list. Alvord explains that the council is automatically on it. But that emergency calls are the entire phone book. Otherwise its an opt in. Michelle Deluca would be the better person to answer that question in detail.

Krummel asks about South Norwalk’s lighting. Locito has been terminated. RDA doesn’t have money left to finish the lighting project. The entire wiring of Washington street needs to be done. They have $10k and they need another $22k to do the job. Locito was terminated because of non performance.

They next reviewed tree plantings on Calvary road and Staples court. They plan on 15 trees by the Gardella marina following some pipe job repair and regrading of the road.

Krummel wants to skip item 4 on yard waste removal out of order. Bondi moves the item after they vote on switching the agenda order.

Alvord explains that the Smith street facility doesn’t process yard debris, they haul it away. The contract they have is the hauling aspect. They issued an RFP, following the council guidelines. The invitation for bid is used for discrete projects, like a specific piece of equipment, and during that process there’s an opportunity to determine the lowest responsible bidder. In this case they used the RFP process, which is a request for proposal. The proposers are asked to submit bids on a range of services that might be used. They check to make sure that all the items are responded to, and that you select the preferred proposer and then work out the details of the negotiation. Alvord draws the analogy to the garbage contract proposal.

They received 4 proposals and only one of the proposers was responsive. Alvord said that they consulted with Corp Counsel, and decided that they would include those that were non responsive and seek additional resposnes. Despite that, the other proposers were not responsive, and so they are left with M&E.

Maslan explains the process in greater detail, touches on fairness issue and how that works between RFP versus RFQ. Hemstead provides a hypothetical, and the process is explained. It gets really into the details of the process. They get stuck on whether audited financials were really required. A vendor was here to explain how the process was unfair and explains the virtue of the contract. The vendor does teh same job for Greenwich, Stamford, Darien and Trumbull. They were the lowest price but that they were rejected because they didn’t have certified fianncials even though they met all of the other criteria.

Bondi says they should be considered because they were the lowest bidder. Hilliard agrees, and Lindstrom asks about the certified financial statements. Alvord defends the decision. Royal environmental didn’t have the trucks on hand to remove the yard waste. The list of trucks was 6. Bondi questioned how the other towns used them. Alvord explains that they called purchasing of the towns that were listed as references and didn’t get a call back. Straniti asks what the standard call back process is.

Bondi says they ha has some letters from Darien, Greenwich and Trumbull. The letters were supplied by the vendor in the RFP, but the vendor handed those letters that Bondi mentioned tonight.

Lindstrom confirms that there was an interview process, and Alvord said they could have invited them in for interviews. Alvord said that the RFP was specific and that there was no lack of clarity of the proposal. Alvord said that there must be a level playing field. He says that he never saw the letters that they have now been looking at.

Conroy asks when the due date for all the RFP information. Avord says that the end of September and that the requests for clarifications went out on October 17th and due date October 28th. Conroy asks about the lowest bidder.

Maslan jumps in and clarifies that lowest bidder is not the only requirement. Conroy asks how the lowest bidder was deficient.

Alvord replies that they only had 4 trucks and not enough staff. Conroy asks about the winning firm, and Alvord replies that there was a list of 20 trucks that were itemized. Conroy says just on the price issue, it seemed to favor Royal.

Maslan addresses the issue about when vendors can be talked with during the bidding process. You don’t negotiate with multiple proposers, you have to pick a proposer to negotiate with.

The discussion continues with Alvord saying, if they reject the preferred vendor, where would the council want him to go next. He says that there must be integrity of the process. That there are issues other than price. The council could say, according to Alvord, that price is the only criteria. No one was prevented from submitting all the criteria that was requested. He is not advocating that the city bid soley on price. DW, the current contractor, was the preferred bidder.

Krummel asks for Maslan to comment. Maslan says that if the contract is rejected by the council that DPW would have to go through the bid process again. Maslan explains the dangers of letting bidders getting another bite at the apple. The discussion continues.

Hempstead says he is uncomfortable voting for or against the contract because he lacks the qualification criteria. He wants weights on the evaluation criteria.

Now there’s discussion of tabling the issue for more information. They vote unanimously to table it. I asked Bondi what the total value of the contract was and he said that they didn’t know.

Conroy makes a motion to ask for a one month exstention with the current contractor. There’s a discussion if they have to do this, does it have to go the full council, and whether Alvord has the authorization to do it. But the motion is dropped because Maslan agrees to add it the council agenda if they need to.

They approve the minutes with Bondi, Conroy and Straniti abstaining.

There’s a discussion on raising the rates and fees. Ah. Finally the issue that I showed up for. Hillard thinks the economy should make them wait on imposing increased fees. Straniti says she’s opposed to the reculcying bin fee. Bondi points out that the bin fee is not even covering the cost of the bin. Bondi says only 3 fees are going up, driveway permit, tree removal, and the check return fee.

The discussion continues. Why haven’t they asked how many blue bins are sold? They discuss voting on the fees item by item.

Bondi encourages the vote to happen.

They vote first on the entire fee schedule. Hempstead withdraws teh motion on the full fee schedule and then moves to item by item, startig with the blue bin fee as proposed.

Bondi, Hempstead, Contory, Krummel vote for Lindstrom, Straniti, and Hillard vote against.

Solid Waste Fee reduction.

They vote unanimously.

Driveway permit inspection fee increase $200 to $400.

Bondi, Hempstead, Contory, Krummel Lindstrom vote for Straniti, and Hillard vote against.

Encroachment permit fee $150 to $200.

Bondi, Hempstead, Contory, Krummel Lindstrom vote for Straniti, and Hillard vote against.

Tree removal fee on public property from $150 to $200.

Bondi, Hempstead, Krummel Lindstrom vote for Straniti, Conroy and Hillard vote against.

They vote unanimously to remove the mylar fee form the list.

They vote on the returned check fee.

Bondi, Hempstead, Krummel Lindstrom vote for Straniti, Conroy and Hillard vote against.

They vote unanimously on the item 3.

The Permit software item that was returned from the common council is next.

The account that they are using to pay for it was allowed to according to Maslan. They vote unanimously.

The crescent street transfer station operation is ….. good. All transer of ownership back to City managmenet is going okay, they have the permits in process, and they are planning to move the oil and battery drop off to Crescent street. THey are working on electronics. And working a final walk through with CRRA. CRRA otherwise is not cooperating with the battery and il drop off because of permitting.