Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

All right. Thank you, everyone. Welcome to the Utilities Committee for Tuesday, February 24. I'm calling the meeting to order. Please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under Individual. With liberty and justice for all. Thank you all. Please be seated. Roll call of membership. Let the records note that Alder Heffernan is excused. And we'll introduce ourselves starting on my left.

Adrian Stanson Martin, District 11.

Vered Meltzer, District 2. Josh Lambert, District 1.

Denny Dougherty, District 15.

All right. So we need an approval of the minutes from the previous meeting, 260242, to approve the February 10 Utilities Committee meeting minutes.

Move to approve. Second. All right. We have a motion and a second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? There are none. The minutes are approved. We do not have any public hearings or appearances today. We have one action item, 20Six-one75, approval of an engineering services contract for the Lindbergh Standpipe Coating Project to Dixon Engineering Incorporated in the amount of $51,465 plus a 5% contingency of $2,573 for a total cost of $54 or sorry, 54,054 thousand and $38. Can I get a motion?

Motion to approve. Second.

Alright. We have a motion and a second.

Did staff want to start us off?

Director

go ahead.

So this this project and and finance committee yesterday, or last, night approved the budget transfer for this. So we're utilizing unused O and M funds from last year's Mephias and Ridgeway coating. The bids given that very favorable to go ahead and get this off our list. This tower stand was quoted inside a node back in 2019. So this is a premature recoating event.

Usually that frequency is about fifteen to twenty year cycles. The reason we're coming back as a little bit prematurely is that with that last coating job, we had some inclement early winter set in during the project in which the prime coat was applied. Then the top coat was their attempt to be made by heating the inside of tank, which is a means and methods way you can do it. What you can't see is what you can't see. So there was intermittent flashes of condensation when a door was opened.

Right? They did what they could do to mask things off to keep condensation from coming in. But when you're heating the inside that tank, simple as somebody just opening a temp door into the inside this tank, has enough condensation that you get flash condensation on the tank. You can't see it. Humidity measurements won't pick it up, but it was just enough to cause bad adhesion. We talked about that a little while ago with that top coat on the prime coat. Well, a couple years later you start seeing that delamination occurred. It's premature. Want to get ahead of it before the rest of the top coat fails. Of course, prime coat's not meant to prevent corrosion.

That's why we're coming back at it. And so this RFP process was to select the firms that we generally work with as part of it. It's worth mentioning that these are imperfect subjective processes when we have our review with our internal review team. There's metrics supplied and we weight things accordingly. And then we always use on the backside once the fees are open, right? So we grade our proposals. And then once we have our scores based on project team, project understanding, and then some other metrics that we apply value to, not as strong as the other ones I just mentioned, is that this value comes in. Because we strongly believe that each one of the firms can do this work. So cost is always a component. But we want to shy away from this being an RFQ.

Because if it's just lease cost, then we call it RFQ. You do your best to throw out there and you get what you get. And the services that are provided aren't always the same. And so that's where the RFP comes into play. So this one was I struggled with a little bit because all three firms could do it, the work.

And the scores and the costs were a little bit wonky. And so the firm that we selected was the highest score, but not the best value, if that's the best way to describe that, right? So the point per cost, right? But the firm based on how the team evaluated thought that this is the one we want to go with. They are more expensive, but there's going be a higher degree of field presence throughout that duration of the project, which we felt was important for this specific job because of the nature of what happened previously. So I don't if anybody's got any questions.

Well, I was actually going to ask you why we were going with the highest the most expensive one, but you preemptively explained all of that. So, yeah. So we feel that basically we understand what went wrong last time and we feel that the decision making right now is primarily to make sure that doesn't happen

Yeah, it's circumstantial and project specific. Just because it's not a one size fits all for the next coding project, just because they provide a proposal based on whatever their criteria is providing field presence and other things, It's not to say we'd make the same decision all things equal. So it's not cherry picking but that is recognizing to the extent we can as people that are given this gift of a finished water tower to understand how well that coating system is and how long it's going to last and how long we can sacrifice a standpipe or a tower to be out of service, right? Because that's what's going to happen. This thing's got to be out of service while we it.

And so there's other work going on in the distribution system at our plant. So it's got to fit our schedule operationally.

Alright, thank you. Any comments or questions from the committee? Alright, seeing none, let's go ahead and take our vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstaining? There are none. That is recommended four-zero for approval. Moving down, information items 20 Six-two46, Planned Riverview Gardens Regional Stormwater Quality Pond.

There

you go. Thank you. Thank you, chair. DPW has provided a memo explaining what's in the memorandum of understanding. And I'm happy to answer any questions about the project or the information that's in the memo or the MOU.

All right. Well, I think this is an exciting collaboration. I think Riverview Gardens will be very good stewards of a stormwater pond. I think it's a great synergy. Any comments or questions from the committee?

Seems like a I would agree.

Alright. Thank you very much for that. And then, we have twenty six-two forty eight, our water main break report for December 2025.

So I handed out, which we'll also attach to the minutes, a graph showing rain breaks over the past twenty six years. Just looking at the December report alone, it looks like we had a bad year of '90 versus what we had in 2466. So I just wanted to show that even though it was a worse year than we had previously, it was still a little better than average. So not terrible. A lot of things affect how many breaks we have in a year.

Weather is a big component we're And lot market. A growth the still less than the '95 average that we've seen over that time period.

All right. So could you speak a little bit to the phenomenon where as improvements are made that that can then put kind of stress or pressure on surrounding much older pipes and to what degree is that a factor in these breaks happening?

Sure. Yeah, there's a lot of factors. I mentioned weather. It also can be you are repairing sections of water main throughout the city and that or increasing the size, adding water towers, anything we're doing that may increase pressure in the pipe that can cause failures as well. So good question.

So basically until until all of our pipes are newer, more modern pipes, these old pipes are eventually going to have main breaks, right? Because that's how pipes die?

Correct.

Well, really appreciate the work that your department does staying on top of this and doing all these repairs. It's been a busy month for you guys. Alright, any comments or questions from committee? No. Alright. Moving down to item number eight.

Move to adjourn. Second.

Alright. All in favor of adjourning say aye. Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.