Board of Public Works - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome, everyone, to the Utilities Committee meeting for Tuesday, March 24. I am 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 God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. Please be seated. Roll call of membership. Let the record show that Alderperson Heffernan is excused. Alderperson Stansel Martin is excused. And we will introduce ourselves starting on my left. Denny Dougherty, District 15. Vered Meltzer, District 2. Josh Lambert, District 1. All right.

Thank you. And we need to approve the minutes from our previous meeting from March 10.

Move to approve.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed or abstentions? There are none. Three zero, we have approved those minutes. We do not have any public hearings or appearances today, and we have one action item, 26Dash0383, request to award 2026 c, Stormwater Consulting Services sole source contract for Northland Bel Air preliminary design to Brown and Caldwell in an amount not to exceed $3,900,000

Move to approve.

Second. All

right. We have a motion and a second. Deputy Director Newburger, what mic do you have? Thank

you, chair. So there's a fair amount to unpack in the memo here. So I'll just walk the committee members through it and then be happy to answer any questions. So a little bit on the project history first. So at the 01/27/2026 Utilities Committee and then the subsequent Common Council, there was an authorization for DPW to develop with Brown and Caldwell a single source scope of services for preliminary engineering of the initially recommended improvements for the 2024 D study that was discussed at that referenced utilities committee meeting.

In a nutshell, those initial recommendations included three primary components, including an expansion of the Veterans Memorial Park South Pond, storm sewer improvements and inlet capacity enhancements in Northland Avenue East Of Meade Street, and then local storm sewer improvements and inlet capacity enhancements in local streets East Of Meade Street and South Of Northland Avenue. The total estimated implementation cost of those three primary components was identified at that meeting as $22,000,000 So with that, we are following up per that recommendation with a proposed contract scope, dollars 390,000 for preliminary engineering with Brown and Caldwell. So the primary components on that would be services provided by Brown and Caldwell, project management coordination meetings with DPW staff and other stakeholders, perform complete design level topo survey for the pond expansion in Memorial Park, utility design survey for the Northland Avenue and local street storm sewer improvements. The focus on that level of design survey would be to identify potential utility conflicts would be probably the main focus of that. Complete a wetland survey and delineation with groundwater analysis for the pond expansion, a geotechnical investigation with soil borings for the pond expansion and the Northland Avenue storm sewer improvements.

And refine the current studies, SWIM hydrologic and hydraulic system modeling based on the preliminary engineering design. And then we'll be updating the wind slam water quality modeling for the pond expansion in support of the city's DNR MS4 permit. Then developing 30% engineering design plans for the Northland Avenue and the local street storm sewer improvements and those inlet capacity calculations. That would include planning profile engineering drawings for the sewer improvements and development of potential alternative to resolve utility conflicts that are identified as part of that design, developing 60% engineering design plans for the pond expansion, and then developing a basis of design report which would document all those modeling inputs and outputs, pond performance, GIS database, digital files for survey and design, the geotechnical investigation, project phasing analysis, inventory required permits and refined project cost estimates. The proposed project schedule as worked out with Brown and Caldwell will be as follows.

Anticipating notice to proceed around April 6. The geotechnical wetland survey investigations would be conducted April through June of this year. 30% storm sewer design completion is proposed to be done by December 31 this year. Also, 60% pond design is proposed to be completed by December 31 this year. And then the basis of design report would also be completed by December 31 this year. So that's what fits under this contract in terms of schedule. And then bigger picture schedule, B. The of

And second question

will also finalize the pond design expansion ahead. Around March 31 as part of a future contract subject to funding and contract approval. DPW staff, we anticipate, will do the finalization of the storm sewer designs in 2027. And then DPW staff would develop 2027 storm order capital budget requests and carryover requests as needed to support future final engineering and construction contracts for a Phase one construction project to be bid in 2027. And then DPW staff will support finance department for their planned 2026 stormwater utility rate study reflecting the best available data for stormwater estimated stormwater capital and operations admin expansions, including this project as well as all of our other spending priorities within a ten year time frame.

So that is the game plan and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from the committee?

Alder Lambrecht. Just with regards to any of the develop a portion, so the develop 30% of the engineering design plans or develop 60%, would the assumption be that the city staff would be completing the remainder of whatever that planning would be? Or is that something for a future design?

So for the storm sewer improvements, we're anticipating that staff would complete those designs. Depending on the level of structural analysis that would be involved in that very large Northland Avenue storm sewer, we may be looking for the consultant to take that Northland Avenue storm sewer farther into the design process and where that handoff may take place would be defined at a later date. We don't quite yet know that yet. But I think it's pretty reasonable to anticipate at this point for the local sewers, we would probably take that handoff at thirty percent design. As far as the pond expansion, we anticipate that that would be through final design by the consultant.

And is that what the third bullet point in the additionally DPW anticipates? Where you said DPW staff will finalize storm design, that's kind of the additional 70% of the storm suit water design. And Okay. Thank you. That's right. Great. Thank

you. Thank you. And Alder Krott is in attendance. Did you have any questions? All right. Thank you. This is a lot. But I like the project schedule. I can't really imagine how we could get things done any quicker than this. Are there any concerns or risks of particular things that might delay this, like likely or predictable things that could pose risks?

I think as with any project, especially one this complex and having so many moving parts, there is that potential. And we actually did spend a fair amount of time working with the consultant to try to figure out what the right target date is for various steps. And we kind of went back and forth with them a little bit. We wanted to demonstrate that this would be pursued aggressively without overpromising on a delivery date. And I think we landed in a spot where we're reasonably comfortable.

But again, there are a number of factors that could change this schedule. Perhaps even if we wanted to be optimistic about it, maybe we could even bring this thing next question. Looking at next I think we're we're going probably where we anticipate the highest probability of landing on these things as identified in the memo.

Wonderful. Thank you. Anything else? All right, let's go ahead and vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed or abstaining? There are none. That is recommended for approval Three-zero, and that will go to common counsel. All right. We have one information item. It's 20Six-three84, the water main break report for January 2026. Listeners, any questions? Any questions or comments about it? I think we're off to a good start.

We're pretty much aligned with where we were last year. And I just have to say we're very thankful we did not experience any water main breaks during the snow events last week. So that was Oh, a perk because we had to have all hands on deck for plowing, hauling, clearing operations. So we're very thankful for that.

Awesome. I'm glad to hear that. Just something that I'm sure is not really very important to anyone, but I'm curious, because I look at these reports for every month, and we see the duration of those breaks. Do we have on record what the longest duration of a water main break was before it was discovered? I would just be very curious, says a piece of trivia.

I do not know offhand, but certainly something I can look into.

Okay. I thought it was pretty neat, that we've got some of these breaks on here. They were only, like six hours long. I was like, that's great. They were found in less than half a day.

All right. Anything else? Nothing All right. We have a motion to adjourn. Do we have a second? Second. All right, all in favor of adjourning say aye.

Aye.

We are adjourned. Thank you very much.