City Commission - Regular Meeting

afternoon everyone welcome to this joint meeting between the delray beach community redevelopment agency and the delray beach city commission this may 26th if i could have the clerk please call the city commission role deputy vice mayor marker here commissioner malika here commissioner casale here vice mayor burns here mayor carney here and if i could also ask you to please call the role for the community redevelopment agency

Chair Casale? Here. Vice Chair Mollica? Here. Deputy Vice Chair Markert? Here. CRA Commissioner Burns?

Here.

CRA Commissioner Carney?

Here.

Could I get a point of order for Mr. Moore to just explain to the public why this was a joint meeting? I was speaking to the city attorney about this. And at some point in very short time, it's converted to a workshop, which means we couldn't take a vote if we had decided to vote on something or advance something in addition to what this discussion is here today. Could you explain how that transpired?

The purpose of this exercise is to experience an overview in terms of the Pompei Park Guarantee Maximum Price Construction Overview. Likewise, an opportunity for guidance and direction to be offered by both the Commission and the Community Redevelopment Agency Board of Directors. And the next regular meeting, of course, of the City Commission will be one week from today. In the event that there's an affirmative interest to proceed in that regard, a action item will be forthcoming in that timeframe.

Right, but I think typically if you see things on as meetings, they should stay on as meetings and not be changed in the last moment to a workshop. Thank you. And can I make another point of order, one other thing?

Sure.

I'm just going to make this super brief. As we sit up here as the overseers of the policies, procedures in the city, the email exchange that happened Friday and Saturday, very disappointing. Should be held to a very high standard. What are you referring to? I'm referring to you going outside council without consulting with us for a determination.

Let's have that discussion later.

Well, I think we need to have that discussion. Let's have that discussion later. We should at the end of the meeting. Thank you. I'd appreciate a discussion on that.

I'm not going to be discussing that.

Well, you should. You're the one sending out the emails. Thank you. I would appreciate an explanation.

You can appreciate what you like. Lovely. Who do we go first?

So I would like to begin with Director of Public Works, Missy Barletto, as this is a joint engagement. Executive Director Renee Jada Singh is present, and of course, Director of Parks and Recreation, Sam Mitot. However, the presentation, the principal will be Director of Public Works, Missy Barletto. If you would, please, Miss Barletto.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioner, and CRA Chair and CRA Commissioners. Missy Barletto, Director of Public Works. I have with me Sam Metot, who is the Parks and Recreation Director, and Renee Jadising, who is the Director of the CRA. All of us are working together to bring the Pompey Park project to fruition. While the three of us have been sitting up here in the front, also I would like to introduce the team from Core Construction. Ted, if you would come up to the podium and introduce your team. Sure.

Good afternoon. Ted Kava, senior vice president of core construction. It's a pleasure seeing everyone again. It was a couple of years since we presented here. With me today is Alvin Gunder, senior project manager in Akini Akini as one of our project managers with our partners, Dwayne Randolph from the Randolph Construction Group, William Hatcher from Hatcher Construction, and Remine Raine from the Reach Group. Thank you very much for the opportunity.

And from city staff, you don't often get an opportunity to meet the city employees behind the scenes. But in the very back row, sitting as far away from me as humanly possible, is engineering division manager Jason Kaufman and the project manager for this project, Kevin Matthews. And there are quite a few Parks and Recreation staff back there as well. Do you want to introduce your crew?

Good afternoon, everybody. Again, Sam Mehta, Parks and Rec Director. In the back, we have Parks Superintendent Synovian Stevens, Recreation Superintendent Prentice Mobley, as well as Assistant Director Amy Hansen, all of them who have been vital in the project so far.

Okay, so getting started, I wanted to initially give an overview of the Pompe Park project. The Pompe Park Recreation Center is being renovated to provide more recreational opportunities. Some of those include a newly constructed recreation facility, new large multipurpose community rooms, a new pavilion with shelter and restrooms, an indoor running track, which is probably my favorite feature. Not that I'll be running on it. an outdoor fitness and shade structure for after school after school care program that is completely separated as required by statute from all of the other facilities so those children are not exposed to other visitors at the at the recreation center. There's a new aquatics facility, a pool cabana with changing rooms, increased parking lot area, new playgrounds, new basketball courts, indoor and outdoor. There's quite a lot of amenities that are included in this project. So here's a project overview of what the finished project is going to look like. There are a couple of changes that we're going to present to you today from this initial view. This is what this site looks like now with the parking areas in three major spots, the tennis courts, the existing swimming pool being a distance away from the recreation center. the three ball fields, there is not a large multipurpose room, there's very little parking available in the parking lots, and there's no on-street parking. I will add into this that the on-street parking that's being added for this project is actually going to be done in coordination with the Northwest Neighborhood Project and not with the Pompey Park Recreation Center project. So this is what the proposed new site looks like. The parking area now extends all the way around the east and south perimeter of the site. There's a new, you can see the outline of the new recreation center building. there are two swimming pools in this in this rendering one on the on the north side is that's a family pool it has a zero depth entry into the pool so it's got a lot of nice shallow area for very young children and and then it goes into the deeper area of the pool and the little square outline on the outside of that is actually a lap pool in an area that will be dedicated to the pool exercise classes that are very, very popular. The other swimming pool that is shown in this particular drawing is a competition swimming pool. And then to the east of that are two full-size basketball courts and one half court. The tennis center remains the same. And then there's a great lawn there with a new playground facility that has a shaded structure over it. So this starts to show what the interior of the recreation center is going to look like. This is the ground floor level that has two indoor basketball courts. It has the administration offices, activity rooms, storage, restrooms, lockers for the swimming pool area. The after school care suite is on this first floor level. along with a playroom and an area for lifeguard staff, as well as the gym, which in addition to the basketball courts, provides space for fitness, dance, and aerobics. So the second floor plan for the second floor includes more administration offices. It includes an auditorium style for a big community meeting room, as well as individual meeting spaces that are dedicated for the seniors program and teen programs and other items. This is what it's going to look like on the outside. These are the exterior elevations. The bottom picture is the front elevation as you come into the building. The top picture is what it will look like from the pool deck. This is the interior. You'll see what looks like two sets of stairs. The one set of stairs is actually for walking up and down. The second set of stairs is something that's become quite popular for teens It's a lounging area where they can sit and talk on the stairs. We'll also get them up and down, but there are actual chargers for their phones on the front side of those stairs so they can sit and charge their phone and talk and visit in that area. I would be in the green chairs if it was me, but... guess the kids like to sit in these more communal areas you can see to the foot of the stairs there's also an indoor play play area for the smaller kids or the walking track first for some of us So these are some of the exterior amenities, what they're going to look like, the basketball pavilion, the dugouts for the baseball fields, and the swimming pool cabana area. picnic pavilions. At the bottom there you'll see two different views of the pergola and we're going to have more conversation later on in this presentation about both the pergola and the competition swimming pool. So as we've talked about many times here recently, a construction manager at risk or CMAR contract is divided into two phases. The first phase is the one that we're coming to a close right now where we have worked with the contractor as well as our owner's representatives to look in great detail at the plan set to identify potential conflicts, to identify different ways that we can work together to revise those conflicts in advance of construction, which is always a savings of time and money. and to identify alternatives that may or may not remain in the project plans as we get closer to establishing the guaranteed maximum price, or GMP. And also value engineering items. Value engineering is not where we look at it and we remove things that are important to the project. It's where we look at the materials that have been specified to construct the project. and substitute less expensive materials that provide the same quality and serve the same purpose. That's where you get the value. They may not be the high-end materials, but they are still providing all of the structural integrity and everything else that's required to create the project. Many of the value engineering items you would never see. They're inside the walls. It's the ceiling tiles. Nobody ever walked into it. Well, I'm not going to say that because somebody probably did, but walked into a facility and said, well, this would be so much nicer with different ceiling tiles. So it's that kind of things that we were looking at. Once we went through all of that, there were a number of things that were suggested by CORE, by the contractor, that could have been either GMP alternates or value engineering things that city staff did not accept. So I will say that, that we stuck very strongly to the integrity of the project and did not accept all of the offerings that were put forward. So once we get through that process, then we look at the conflicts, we resolve those through improved engineering plan sets and provide those. And the contractor takes those bid sets and then advertises for subcontractors to bid on all the elements of the project. And they do that in accordance with the city's procurement process and procedures to ensure that we're providing a level playing field out there. And when they come back after all of those bids come in, we do what is called bid leveling, where they take the bids and they make sure that they are comparing apples and apples on each of the subcontractor types. and not apples to oranges and lemons so that it's very difficult to see where the biggest value is so they do the the bid leveling and arrive at an initial cost estimate and then we begin to negotiate on that on that cost estimate and in this particular project i will tell you that it was a a long hard-fought negotiation on the cost for this project and and staff and our owners rep along with the contractors team worked very hard on getting to this number so the contractor then submits a proposed guaranteed maximum price for the project and at that point which is kind of where we are now we're Closing out this first phase of the contract, the commission can either accept or reject the offered GMP. And then phase two, should you accept the offered GMP, we start construction. So I've already alluded a little bit to there has been a lot of negotiation that went back and forth between the city team and the contractor team. Their starting position with us was at $65.8 million. Following the... Reduction of the GMP alternates the value engineering and the bid leveling then the price came down to 63.3 million which is what they initially submitted to us and after after that we had a final negotiation meeting with upper-level city staff and And we agreed that should the commission approve it, that we might be able to remove the competition swimming pool and ask them to make some further adjustments on their side, which they did. And that brought the price down to $59.39 million as their current best price offer and GMP. So I know you're going to ask what some of those reductions in fees and contingency actually were. So the GMP alternates and value engineering reduced the total proposed GMP by 1.27 million right off the bat. And some of those things, although I have the elimination of the competition swimming pool in there, that's not included in that 1.27 number, and I shouldn't have left it on that line, but that's my bad. But we removed one of the outdoor fitness areas for equipment. We only have one wayfinding monument signed for the project right at the entrance, not a second one at the northwest area. We reduced the number of bullpens at the adult field. We removed the decorative pergola. And we also removed the outdoor basketball half court. And that got us down. That's what got us to the 63.3 million number. And then to get us the rest of the way, we removed the competition pool for $2.4 million. And then the core team reduced general conditions and requirements at just $160,000. They reduced their management fee from 5% to 4.5% for a reduction of $412,266. They had originally calculated contingencies on the project, on the full project amount at $63.3 million. Normally, that is done just on the hard costs, what it actually costs to build the project. And they recalculated those contingencies off just the direct hard costs, which resulted in $950,000 in savings to the GMP proposal. And then they reduced some of the material escalation trade costs for $215,000 and then reduced the material escalation contingency from 0.5% to 0.25%. And that was another $110,000 that was removed from the 63.3% million GMP proposal to bring it down to the fifty nine point three nine million number so as far as scheduling goes all of the changes to the to the costing and things did not alter the schedule because even removing the competition pool that was being done in in In parallel with other activities that were going to be happening out there, so it did not reduce the overall timeline the the final completion for the community center is Would be scheduled for May of 2028 and the final completion for all of the ball fields picnic pavilions paving curbs sidewalks all the exterior thing exterior items would be in January of 2029. So that is the end of my presentation today.

If you have any questions for us or for the core team, we're here to... Just one thing I'd jump in there and add, just to give some clarity on that last slide with the timelines. Important note is that many of the items, for example, like the ball fields and picnics, They're still online during the initial phase. I don't want everyone to think that the whole park gets closed down all at once and this is only opened up in stage. That it's phased in. Some of the new construction and the old facilities are still operational. And then we work on the fields at the end. Does that make sense? Correct.

Even the recreation center will still be able to be used by the general public while the new recreation center is being constructed. So the phasing of this project has paid as much attention as possible to keeping the facility operational for the period of time that it's undergoing the renovations.

Thank you very much. This is a joint meeting, so does the executive director of the CRA want to weigh in on anything?

No, I will add, actually, we do have $45 million budgeted for this, so at some point we'll have to look at our budget and how to make adjustments to accommodate this if we go forward.

What's your timeline on getting the increased $14 million? $15 million?

Well, we have some areas that are in the similar, I guess, location that we can or shift funds over, and we'll have to look at budgeting next year. But we'd have to do this year through a budget amendment and then next year. So I'd say within the next year or so we'd be able to do it. I don't know what we're receiving yet from the city and the county.

When you say other projects, are you talking about the improvement money that's set aside for the northwest, southwest neighborhoods?

There's improvement funds. We could look at our acquisition funds. There's also some West Atlantic projects on the, I guess, in the main Atlantic Avenue that we could look at as well. it's going to be a discussion we'll have to have how we want to make those adjustments. But they're all coming from the west. It's all in the same area. Because right now I think about 90% of our budget is in the west Atlantic, northwest, southwest, the set area. So it'll be coming from some project in the area.

Great. Thank you. Okay. To the commission, I guess. Who would like to be recognized to talk first?

Mayor, excuse me. The agenda does have public comment on it. I don't think we've done that yet.

oh no I have not this meeting is open for now for public comments anybody wishing to comment on this proposal please come to the lectern give your name and zip code for the record and you will each have three minutes good afternoon my name is Cynthia Ridley I live at 210 Northwest South

Northwest South Avenue over here. I'm here standing because I grew up in this community. We done saw old Pompey Park. We saw a new Pompey Park. And now we hoping that you bring this to our children that's coming after us to this Pompey Park. That we add technology and all the things that we need to happen at Pompey Park, even for the older seniors. senior community as I am to visit Pompei Park and this community needs that. We use Pompei Park. We love Pompei Park. You can't hear anything bad about Pompei Park because most of us grew up at Pompei Park when we were teens where we used to have dances from this community. So not to see this go forward. I think it would be a disappointment to all the people that we serve that look like me. That we've been waiting for such a long time to see something that represents us in our community. It ain't about the city. It's about the whole community. Because you know it's changing. So other folks are using our park as well. So it's Pompei Park. But just to see the changes that's coming. I'm having my grandson go out there to Pompei Park. I use Pompei Park. Pretty much everybody, when we need Pompeii Park, pretty much there's never us say no from this community. And it would be a disservice to this community if that doesn't happen. Y'all don't want us up in here closing your comments down because, you know, we good at doing some things, and we don't want that. So please, I'm here as our community. Been here over 50 years. Just finished my 50th class reunion. and the C. Pompey Park, Miss Libby Wesley do roots out there. We grew up in this community. And not to see some changes that young folks need as well, it'll be a disservice that we can't find the money. I have sit at many of your commission meetings to see y'all find money. And guess what y'all say? Yes. I will never hear a no, maybe one or two people, but other than that, I don't see so many developers coming here. There's no discussion. It's a yes. So I don't even understand why we're standing here and saying that we can't do Pompey Park. I don't miss too many commission meetings that there's a no. But I turn around, I hear a lot of yeses from this commission. So it'll be a disappointment to me to hear that it's a no. So listen to this community. I am just one person. But I'm telling you, we don't want to shut a meeting down. And we're good at that. And have a great day.

Thank you very much. Are there any other members of the public wishing to speak? Seeing none, public comment is closed. Now to the commission. Who would like to be recognized first?

Yes, thank you. I want to say that I appreciate CORE and CITI and CRA for all the work that you do. Everything is commendable. However, I'm seeing what I'm hearing is just not negotiation of price, but a significant reduction in the project with removing the competition pool. I was never in favor of the competition pool because we have won 1.8 miles according to, Google says it's 1.8 miles from Pompey Park, however, the community weighed in on that and i just don't think that to remove it without community input um and noticing this meeting ahead of time so community has a a an opportunity to weigh in on that is doing a disturb a disservice to um to our community so you know it's like this as miss really said it's been a long-awaited project that delivers so much to this community the whole city actually and so i would like to see us and i'm disappointed that we're not making any decisions on this today am i is that correct we're not voting on anything today according to the agenda it's been noticed as a workshop so there's nothing you can provide consensus and direction but there's no formal action that can be taken today okay come if we agree they were coming back to us at the next meeting with a contract to to vote on yeah well as as I was saying I I definitely am in favor of us moving forward finding these funds with whatever we have to do with the the CRA budget However, I don't know the decision about the pool. As I said, I've never been in favor of it, but I think that more than the commission and the board should be deciding on whether we remove that or not.

that's all i have to say at this time let me come back later sure i'd love to go next i would love to speak to that i don't know where the 1.8 mile um pool is okay but here's the reason why the competition pool ever became a subject to conversation miss burns is because i found out that the kids in our school public schools could not participate in the swim team because they didn't have transportation back and forth to boca which is where the kids are currently swimming. It used to be Aquacrest. And even though at the time I spoke to the woman who was running the team, she said she did a lot to match kids up that had resources and their moms were driving them with kids who didn't to get a ride, but it just didn't pan out for any long term. So the end result is kids who may really benefit from being on the swimming team could not participate for lack of resources and that's how the competition pool started was just to have our swim team be able to have a place so our kids in our city could participate in a swim team because when you're talking about a community like this and you're building this community center looking out at the future You say to yourself, not just what is absolutely necessary, but what would really benefit the community in doing it? And that was the goal. And I share your concerns in the negotiations of taking out something substantial to get the price down. And I'll say this to my colleagues and not more. I spoke to Mr. Schiller, and he said the second choice would come back at that 59 price with the competition pool. I would like to see the competition pool. And another thing I was thinking about We're talking about croquet. We should put croquet at Pompey Park. It's perfect. We'll have a tremendous amount of parking. We have all that green space. Why are you laughing? It's going to be our community center. It's going to have snack stand. It's accessible to the downtown, to the restaurants that are downtown. It's a prime location with parking and tons of green space. I think we should talk about incorporating croquet into this plan as well if we're going forward with croquet.

those are my positions well I'm disappointed that we had to negotiate it things that we wanted like the pergola and the batting cages and the competition pool just to be able to afford it because it wasn't a little bit over it was 20 million over and then you just said something about a concession stand I don't think that's included in the scope of the work and it should be I'm sorry what indoor concession okay I know we have a outdated outdoors concession that I'd like to see addressed and yeah I'm not I just feel sad pretty much feel sad that we're not getting everything we wanted and then we're paying a lot more a lot more but miss Ridley we all want to see Pompeii go forward and it's going to go forward Terrence will pay for it

Thank you. I echo everything that I've heard. I'm disappointed that we've had to make some adjustments to the scope. But at the end of the day, I'm very much in favor of this project. I think it's a good project for our community. I think you know giving up the competition pool is is difficult but we will still have a pool there so um you know that that part is still good so i'm sorry we have to make some concessions but um if that's what we have to do to keep this project on track i'm i'm good with it uh unless the community feels there are other concessions that would make more sense that was the one that as i went through with renee that seemed to resonate and make the most sense for me in my chair but if others have different opinions i'm certainly open to listening to that and You know, we have a budget like we do for everything in the city, but I don't want to see this whole project eliminated or cut. I'm good with a few small concessions like we're making here to keep it on track, and I think it's the right thing for Delray and for the community. Great.

Let me just make a couple of quick comments. Mr. Ridley, when you talk about the developers come in here and do that, those are private funds. I look at people how permission to spend private funds a lot differently than I look at spending public funds. everybody wants to get you know we want this project obviously it's it's long overdue for the for Pompei Park I'm excited about a lot of the things that they're going to do I share the concern about the competition pool in that number one I don't think it's the city's place to put two million dollars worth of our taxpayer dollars to support public schools I mean that's what we're saying is the public school kids coming in and using it to pool for practice you certainly can't have any competitions there You know, the whole thing, oh, we'll be able to do competition there. There's no stands. There's no diving platform. Most of these swim teams have diving teams. Your swim teams will not come. They won't split the team up between their diving teams and the swim teams. They just will not come. So I think considering the fact that there is another pool there, a family pool, which is really the one that's going to get used, As opposed to just having something there that the public school kids can use once in a while That doesn't work for me. So I Still think it's an expensive project. I Didn't have that conversation regarding Whether we could get that in at that number. I don't know. I still think it's something the competition was not going to get used and I don't think people understand what it costs. How do you do competition pools? It's got to be 10 feet. Each lane's got to be separately done. It's a very, very expensive process. If we're $300,000, $500,000, OK, do it. But it's close to $2 million. And by the way, Atlantic High School does have room in their own campus if they wanted to do a competition pool. They could really do it right on their own campus. So that's my view. So I guess we have to give you direction as to where we want to go, whether we want this to come back to approve. Is that what we want to do? Or do we want to look at the other contract? I mean, if we look at it.

I think maybe we look at both contracts at this point in time.

If we go to the PURTLE. PURTLE?

PURTLE.

OK. If we went to PURTLE. for example, what is the delay? What does it cost us in time? What does it cost the community in time? I'm sorry, you have something?

Can I just say something? So we do have a contract right now with CORE. So the appropriate way to handle that would be to cancel, reject, or terminate that contract. And then the number two would be PURTL, because if you recall, we had a public hearing with both entities. So that's the default number two. Then you could direct staff to commence the process with PURTL. It would be the same thing. It would still be the CMAR. It would still be the first phase of the contract, then followed by the GMP. But the proper way to do it would be you would have to terminate the contract with CORE.

Okay, well, I guess what I'm getting at is if we decided how long would it – I don't want to cancel the contract without knowing how long the other one would take. So if it's going to drag us another year or two years, then my interest level changes.

The GMP development should take between three and six months. And six months is longer than I think it should take.

Because this one took a lot longer than I thought it was going to take.

Yes, it did. Yes, we did.

I remember my emails to you about the competition pool a year ago. Okay, well, I mean, what's the sense of what we would like to do?

I am not interested in canceling the contract with the company that we've already been doing work with. I'm just interested in seeing them give us a little more, like a concession stand. That's all I want. Out of life.

I didn't see a concession stand. No, it wasn't in the scope of work.

They have agreed to us verbally that they will remove the concession stand at no cost. And then the city can embark on designing a replacement. And we can work with them later in the contract to and see what the price would come back at if they were to build the new construction stand before they leave, but they did not offer to do that for free. I would be coming back for an amendment to the... to the commission to pay for that. Or we could wait for them to get final closeout on their part of the project and we can contract with a different contractor to come in and build a concession stand afterward.

I would like for us to commit to that, after they end it, to commit to coming back and building, because this is like creating a brand new modern facility and leaving an outhouse in the middle of it. like we're gonna take the outhouse down okay and what we need it put back willing I will commit to you and I am in favor of moving with core we've been on this long enough I really don't want to and I hear you saying six to eight months I don't believe that anyway I do think we have a little at this point

in your discussions with them whether or not they can, without the city having to pay for it, this is a big number, $59 million. I remember when we built that structure, it was $450,000 when we built it. The concession stand, do any of what you call it, with the people upstairs, there was all different kind of words we had. We created it so they had an elevator and all that stuff.

Hasn't worked in years.

Not working in the garage. Since I've been in the community.

Outdoor elevators don't work as much as they do.

No, I'm saying. So, I mean, I think we should, I would like to see if they could include in this $59 million doing this concession stand. I mean, they're going to have the equipment. They're going to have everything right on site. They're going to have the demolition things on site because they're going to be demolishing. So I don't see if we could possibly get it. I think it's something we should try to see if we can get.

I can understand they can't commit to building something that they don't know what we want. But maybe we could get a number, an allowance number, within that same pricing.

That's a good idea.

What is the portion on top called? I can't ever get it. Press box. Press box. Thank you. I can't ever remember that.

What we did was the press box, because they wouldn't let us do a concession, so we called it the press box.

Yes. Hi. So is it possible if the city goes out and actually gets plans for the concession stand? Because I think what Missy was saying is that we don't have plans for it. So it's hard for them, you know, the contractor just agreed to do something without knowing what they're building. Because what if we build a major structure that's... Another, exactly, or another, you know, community center. So what if we actually, you know, that's the commitment is that the city will go out and get the plans done for it, present them to CORE. Maybe there's some savings in the project where they could build it or reduce the cost to build it, but we'll know more once we actually have plans.

Thank you. The other thing that we could do is build an allowance into the contract for the replacement concession stand and then make sure that the design that we do fits within that allowance. But if that were something that you would be interested in doing, it would need to be without increasing the overall GMP and that would be something that I would think that mr. Cava would want to address Okay, would you like to address us I

Yeah, and I think when it comes down to knowing what we're going to be able to build.

Could you formally introduce yourself, Mr. Calva?

I'm sorry. Ted Calva, Core Construction, Senior Vice President. When it comes down to knowing what we're going to actually build right now, we just don't know that. So as we talk to staff, it's like, guys, we want to be supportive in this process. We want to be supportive of the project. But until we have a good understanding of what we're building, it's very difficult to come up with a price to incorporate in this. But you have core's commitment. What I'd be willing to do is making sure that there's no fee on top of it. I'm just looking for my subcontracting costs to be reimbursed because I just don't know what I'm going to be pricing out at this stage. I recognize where we are from a budget perspective and we want, at the end of the day, is what the community wants. It's a fantastic project that everyone can be sitting here today and being really excited that the project's going to happen. So once we have a design, once I have an understanding, you have my commitment, is that we won't mark it up. We'll make sure there's fair competitive pricing at that point in time, and then... we will work with staff to make that occur. But we did recommend the idea of incorporating some type of allowance based on some initial programming that could be incorporated as part of the guaranteed maximum price.

Okay.

What's your sense of the... Do we want to go forward with that, with the idea that we try to build in and allow... For me, I think that if you can still get the competition pool and be in the same price, I don't know why we wouldn't be moving forward that way, even if it's six more months. We've waited years and years and years for this project. I mean, the individual who said that they will meet that price and include the competition pool is honorable. And we can take that... at its word. So I don't know why we would forego that for six months of time.

But that company hasn't priced this project out.

Yes, but we're getting a guarantee from them.

The competition pool is a $2 million item. I understand totally.

But it was also part of the original package. Agreed. And then negotiations is taking something substantial out to get to a lower price. I don't know why we wouldn't just give it the next six months and get it done. And I understand totally what you're saying about the school system. So maybe we could go to the county and ask them to supplement a little because it is for the kids in the school. I always feel like there's a way to get the things that we want done, and if that's important enough to us, we should do that. And especially if we can do it at the same price as not doing it.

That's, to me, is... Well, the issue is do we want to spend another six or eight or ten months?

It's not going to be six or eight or ten. I think the staff said it would be like six. And I think six months of waiting is worthwhile if we get something out of it that's substantial, in my opinion. And I would like to also talk about the croquet being over there.

My vote is to move forward with CORE and not wait the six months.

With the substantial allowance for the concession.

Okay. I'm sorry.

Sorry. Can I comment with the concession stand? Another suggestion is we could actually keep the funds in the CRA budget so it's not being transferred into their contract. If we want to do that instead of an allowance, it could be just held with us so we can budget appropriately. Just a suggestion.

I think that's what you did last time.

And also in the information world that we live in, Is there not another city that's built a concession center like this that we could just kind of steal their plans?

I'm sure there are plenty of standard plans out there that we can adapt.

That's what I'm thinking, rather than reinventing the whole wheel.

And while we're doing that, and I agree with that, but please inquire with those persons who use the concession and the press box, because the last one, I mean, standing, you couldn't see the ballpark. You couldn't see what you were supposed to see. So whoever designed that one kind of missed the mark. So please let those persons who are associated with that, affiliated with that, be a part of the plan to say which one of those

ready-made plans you you pick out so that we can see that will definitely be a part of the process so we have no delay no delay no delay so we have consensus of come back to us the croquet part of the design wasn't part of the original throw down grass fake grass please

please that's not the right location i mean you're just i know you really don't want to do it okay it has parking fine mr mayor yes to summarize given the consensus offered by three of us three or four so in any event given the consensus we are in position to offer a guarantee maximum price contract in time for the june 2nd meeting

There are a few things that we still need to sew up in the contract. Staff will be meeting to discuss that this week, and I am hopeful that we will be completely done by June 2nd. If not, it will be the June 9th meeting.

So you have two next regular meetings, June 2nd and June 9th, at which point we'll be bringing back a guaranteed maximum price contract.

June 9th for certain will be on, but we may have it on the earlier one?

Yes.

Okay. Is that satisfactory to everybody? Satisfactory. Okay. Do you have direction?

Thank you for all your hard work in these negotiations.

Thank you for all the hard work you've done. It was a blast. I know it's been very, very time-consuming, and I appreciate everybody in the back who was staying far away from missing all the work you did as well. Because you were the unsung heroes in getting this delivered so that we could have a discussion today. So I want to thank you all very much, staff, for everything you did. And CORE, of course, but staff. So I appreciate it. Anything else? Then we are adjourned.