Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 10-09-2007 regular agenda — reading text

don' t think we should stop any contract right now. I think it should continue on like you recommend. It's already in the budget, we' re not going to get the money back, it's paid for, let them finish the work but not the engineering part of it, you know, we' ll sort of negotiate that out if we decide not to go with the construction part of it. If we decide not to go with the construction there is still going to be a, as I see it, there' s still going to be a cost there because that company has allocated people to do that and they can' t just say, okay fine they don' t want to do it any more we' ll just move to something else. No, they have set aside a period of time, whether it's two years or whatever doing the construction that they have people allocated and they' re probably going to negotiate an amount of money on that particular item also. So all those things need to be considered when we' re trying to decide which way we want to go and it's a lot to think about. And I appreciate it John. John Hofstad - thank you sir. Mayor Anderson - Mr. Miller? Virgil Miller - I don' t want to bring this up but I have to. You know, haven' t we looked at the contract before this meeting to see what the terms of the contract were, whether there was items of the contract, the dollar amounts, and surely, I've never seen a contract that didn' t have some type of termination clause in it. We should know these things. Mike Holmes - nobody has asked to look at it yet, not that end of the contract. Mike Minich - what contract, which contract? What contract are you talking about? Virgil Miller - the one just spent $ 681, 000 Is that your Mike Minich - are you asking the question, hasn' t anyone looked at this contract? question? Virgil Miller - before this meeting for the terms of the contract, I mean termination, ( inaudible) like we don' t know whether we can terminate it or not. Mike Tatum, Purchasing Director - Yes you can terminate this contract. You can terminate it for convenience or you can terminate it for default. Okay? The termination for convenience, if you want to do it, what we will pay this contractor, I have no idea until we sit down and negotiate. Virgil Miller - well I haven' t seen the contract, is it set out, do we have line items in it so we have a design phase that's priced out and then the construction phase that's priced out? 5 of 12 COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 Mike Tatum - the construction administration phase is what you' re basically talking about left to do on this contract, and that's about a quarter of a million. Virgil Miller - is that separately priced? Mike Tatum - yes, okay so about a quarter of a million dollars for construction administration. Once we let a contract, they' re going to oversee that contract. If we don' t do that part, if you all decide to tenninate, then we have to sit down and negotiate with this contractor on how much he wants to tenninate the contract. Of course that would be reviewed by our attorney once it' s all said and done. Virgil Miller - right, but if we say only complete the first phase until further notice from us, we can do that. City Manager - well we wouldn' t proceed to, it's a complete contract, first of all, for both design engineering and construction management. That's what the whole contract is for. There are separate line items there. We wouldn' t proceed to the construction management until we actually got to the portion. Virgil Miller - but it' s time and services right? Mike Tatum - Mr. Miller it's not written like an A& E contract we wrote in the military, okay? Virgil Miller - well I haven' t had time to look at it. Mike Tatum - it's not the same, alright. This one, construction admin was broken down, your design, and then up to the final 100% documents, okay? It' s not written design development and so on and so on, all five or six different phases like we had in the military. Virgil Miller - well I see no, I see support completing the design phase of this effort, but I don' t support continuing any other hours against it until we decide what we are going to do. Mike Minich - I have a question Mr. Mayor. Mayor Anderson - okay just, is that a question then or is that just a statement? Virgil Miller - well this is Mayor Anderson - because I thought that's what Mr. Hofstad said earlier, that they wouldn' t do anything until they came back to us, anything more except complete the design. Virgil Miller - well somebody has to tell the contractor don' t work on this anymore until we come back to you. Mike Minich - I have a question Mr. Mayor. Virgil Miller - how do we do that? Mike Minich - you say the design phase is 95% complete, is that right? 6 of 12 COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 John Hofstad - yes sir Mike Minich - how long before that it will be complete, time wise? John Hofstad - they could probably have it complete in the next 60 days. Mike Minich - so 60 days? John Hofstad - yes sir, 30 - 60 days Mike Minich - okay, and you' re telling us you that you' ll probably come back within 30 days? John Hofstad - right Mike Minich - okay, so we have time to let you go ahead and take a look at this before we get into the construction phase, before we have to go into a termination, the construction phase. We got lots of time basically. City Manager - you' ve got lots oftime because we don' t even have a permit yet and we haven' t even bid out the document yet. Mike Minich - that's exactly right, so we don' t need to get into any stop work situation here right now, all we need to do is look at the other options we have available. Is that correct? John Hofstad - absolutely Mike Minich - okay Mayor Anderson - Mr. Reeves? Dennis Reeves - well, that was my question, I wanted to know what the timeframe for the construction was. I know we cleared up some issues that we had as a Council. Would that be early next year some time when you were thinking they might be able to get the ball rolling? John Hofstad - and the City Manager hit it right on the head. We don' t even have a, I don' t even have a construction permit yet. So it's in the permitting phase of DEP and I think you all know how long that process is. So I would expect I won' t have a permit until some time next year. So there' s plenty of time to evaluate. Dennis Reeves - right, good deal. Mayor Anderson - yes sir, go ahead. Virgil Miller - you can' t get answers unless you ask questions, and that's what I've done, and I appreciate the time and effort you put on it. But still even though you gave us an eight page document there were still unanswered questions and the questions you didn' t answer were questions pertaining to to you this stop working the contract because you really didn' t address that, and I didn' t mention it afternoon. 7 of 12 COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 Mayor Anderson - but he' s addressed it now. Virgil Miller - he' s addressed it now. Mayor Anderson - Any other questions for Mr. Tatum or Mr. Hofstad on this? Mike Minich - I have a motion. Mayor Anderson - okay, just an observation, I'm really hesitant to do this but some of the discussion is going beyond City Council responsibility. When we start dictating how staff should do things, or where staff should be placed, that is way beyond your scope of responsibility. Your scope of responsibility is to ask questions about policy, processes, and if there' s problems with those policies and processes then intervene. But when you get into saying, this I think is how you should market the golf course, this is how I think you should staff an Interlocal arrangement with the County, I think that's going way beyond. If there is a policy thing that you want to say change, our rules of engagement, change the Charter to say we want to get into the day to day operation of the City, then that's what you need to do. But right now there' s a tendency I think lately in some of these discussions to get into the day to day operation of the City and that is beyond the scope, as I understand it in my discussions with the City Attorney, beyond the scope of your responsibilities that is outlined in the Charter. So thank you. You wanted to make a motion sir? Mike Minich - I just wanted to move to recommend, move to approve Mr. Hofstad' s recommendation to allow the two staffs to look at this issue and come back with a progress report in thirty days. Bill Garvie - second Mayor Anderson - Okay Mr. Garvie seconded Mr. Minich' s motion. Okay, do you want to discuss it further? Mike Minich - just briefly, I mean it's something that we certainly need to look at but I concur with you 100%. You know we' re not here to tell people how to work, we' re not here to go out and coordinate between staff agencies, that's not our job. Our job here is to make policy decisions; we' re executive officers for the City. We' re not here to supervise the day to day operations of the City, and that is according to the Charter. So this is an issue that I think, because the County and the City of Fort Walton Beach have come closer together, if it's something we can work out, fine. But this program has been in existence for three years. So we can' t just all of a sudden say, oops change our mind. And as far as the deal about work ve heard in these chambers and other chambers many on contracts, I' stop- times, well why didn' t we get more requests for proposal, and this is the reason why. The reason why is all in the middle of a contract you just decide oh well let's do something else, so you don' t get any contracts from those people any more because they flat don' t want to do business with you. And that' s the risk you take. So if we got a contract with somebody we' re going to live up to that contract, in my option. And if we need to do something else to save the City money in another way because some of those factors have ve seen it many, many times when we say we need to do that too. But I' changed, well we' ll just go out for request for proposals. You know it's not costing us anything and then you wonder why you don' t get any back. Thank you. Mayor Anderson - Mr. Garvie, you want to speak on it? 8 of 12 COUNCIL MEETING 10- 9- 07 Bill Garvie - I just want to say that I think Mr. Hofstad came up with a very logical way of proceeding with this and that is the contract for the design is already, we already have to pay for that, get that behind us and then keep moving forward trying to figure out if there is a better way. Maybe that way is the right way to keep on going with that but maybe it's not, we don' t know that yet. We don' t have all the infonnation we need. He has a system to sort of develop that infonnation and I'm looking forward to that. Mayor Anderson - Mr. Holmes? Mike Holmes - Thank you Mayor. I thought this was the direction I was alluding to in my Council comment last week about some of the things that we say and do and perceptions that we create, it' s very degrading and destroys a lot. But also, as far as Mr. Hofstad' s presentation, I think there' s a lot of time that he may have had to devote to this that could probably have been better utilized. But I'm sure that this is something