On July 15, 2008, on the consent calendar, the Davis City Council adopted a resolution authorizing the City Manager to executive a consultant agreement with West Yost Associates for East Davis Water Tank. The fiscal impact for those consultant fees was expected not to exceed 600,000 dollars.
The first item recommended to council:
“Adopt the attached resolution so that the I-Bank Board can approve the city of Davis 10 million dollar loan request at their April 28, 2009 Board meeting to allow construction of the East Davis water storage tank (CIP 8172).”
The second item recommended:
“Approve the plans and specifications for the East Area Tank (EAT) Project and authorize bid advertisement.”
The construction contract is estimated to be $9.05 million with the total project including staff hours, consultant support, and contingency putting the total cost at $10.94 million.
Last week when I got up before council and complained that these items were not only buried in the consent calendar, but when Councilmember Greenwald tried to pull them, it reached the end of the meeting and a tired council simply approved the items.
Councilmember Souza took exception to my complaint. He asked the city manager if the council had APPROVED the item. He was informed that the city council had merely asked for bids on the item and that there would be a full item when the approval of the bid came for a vote.
However, I strongly disagree with Councilmember Souza’s interpretation here along with that of City Manager Bill Emlen.
First, it’s not clear that the city council would have this issue before them as a full discussion agenda item. The acceptance of the bid back in July for the consultant agreement was on in fact consent, it was not a full agenda item. I happen to notice on that particular agenda’s consent portion there were several items that were merely there as the acceptance of bids. These bids, several for over $100,000, were listed not as regular items, but on the consent calendar.
Second, I would argue that if it were the policy of the city to pass a resolution asking for bids prior to discussion, the city in fact conducts business backwards. Why would you ask for bids prior to a full discussion on whether and what the council wants in terms of a project? And why would you ask for bids on something if you were not interested in building it. This excuse has been used in the past as well to justify pushing forward items. The fact of the matter is, the council should approve and discuss a project prior to asking for bids. Anything else avoids public discussion and scrutiny, in addition to wasting the time of staff and companies submitting bids. To date there has been no discussion of the costs of the project, its design, size, impact or alternatives.
I know many people disagree with the school district going ahead with the DHS Stadium project at this time. However, understand that from a procedural standpoint, the school district went about this in the right way. They commissioned a study on the facilities and their needs. They had a full discussion not only in June of last year, but in December whereby they finally determined to go forward with the stadium project as a priority. Again you can disagree with that decision, but not the process. In subsequent meetings the school district had several full and public discussions on financing options before the project went out for bids. Then they had a full public discussion on the acceptance of the bid, publicly approved and explained the financing, and the project has gone forward. They did not hide any of these discussions as consent items.
And guess what folks, the city of Davis is paying MORE for this water tank than the school district is paying for a new football stadium and there has been zero public discussion to date.
Well, it is very interesting that although the council objected to my complaints last week, this week on the agenda is finally a full discussion of the water tank project. It is an informational item, so they cannot take action on it, but at least there is finally scheduled for the first time to be some sort of discussion.
The city has clearly gotten defensive because they go back to 1989 to discuss the history of the East Tank Project.
The most recent history was as follows:
“2005: When the older “shallow” aquifer wells began to fail or became problematic and the City desired to construct wells into the “deep” aquifer, an Environmental Impact Report was prepared for these replacement wells. The EIR was produced by Winzler & Kelly Consulting Engineers in February of 2005 and entitled, “Environment Impact Report, Davis Well Capacity Replacement”. This report was produced after the West Area Tank had been constructed. There was a public hearing on this report at the March 15, 2005 Council meeting.”
Interesting that there were full reports back in 2005 for the West Area Tank.
Flash ahead to 2008 and 2009:
“2008:
Selection of the consultant to design East Area Tank, approved for $600,724 at the July 15, 2008 Council meeting. See next section for further discussion on the selection process.2009: At the April 21, 2009 Council meeting, the Council approved staff moving forward with the IBank loan application, but deferred action on the request for approval of the project plans and specifications and authorization to advertise the project for construction bids. The Council asked staff to return with additional information justifying the need to move ahead with the project at this time. Staff returned on May 5, 2009 with more information and the Council approved the project plans and specifications and advertisement of the project for construction bids.”
There are two key questions that need to be asked. One is the question of cost and the other is the question of design options.
Does the city need a steel tank or a concrete tank? The city argues for the latter. The staff report argues that over the course of the life cycle of the tanks, while the steel tank would produce an initial 15% savings over concrete, the life cycle of the steel tank would be about 24% higher than a concrete tank. However, the city does not consider that the up-front costs of the steel tank would be less. By constructing the less expensive tank the costs to the ratepayers are more evenly across all users. As it stand now, the majority of costs will be upfront and the current ratepayers would bare primary responsibility to payment along with other huge capital upgrade projects that will lead to considerably higher water rates for consumers.
We can certainly debate this issue, but the discussion and debate should have occurred prior to the asking for bids. Our chief complaint here is one of process not necessary (but not excluding) outcome.
The city staff report thus concludes with a statement that justifies the decision that has already been made:
“As mentioned above in the life cycle analysis discussion, the concrete tank will last approximately 15 years longer than a steel tank. For the purposes of comparison, we evaluated the concrete tank at a 45 year life, equal to steel, but it is significant to note that a concrete tank will last approximately 60 years. And while we didn’t numerically identify this additional total savings, it should be recognized and taken into consideration.
The selection of a concrete tank versus a steel tank was made given the life cycle savings cost of concrete compared to steel, the ability to bury the tank for aesthetic purposes, and the benefit to the local economy.”
A second point that is not raised in the staff report is the fact that the city is now allocating about $700,000 between staffing and consultant costs for design. One expert however suggests that this is a pretty standard design and the city probably did not need additional expenditures to perform their own design of a water tank.
The city has simply failed to do due diligence on these projects to minimize costs. One can look at the main water projects and only because councilmembers and members of the community have continued to raise objections has the council finally begun looking into cost saving measures on both the water supply project and the wastewater treatment plant.
The main problem with respect to the water tank is that this was a nearly $11 million project was passed with little review and almost no discussion. The city should not be placing such items on the consent agenda. I maintain that the city needs a policy to specify exactly what can and what cannot go on consent.
Items such as these should be placed on full agenda, allotted a specific amount of time for deliberation, debate, and discussion, and then bids should be placed after these discussions took place, not before. The way the city has proceeded on this is in fact backwards. The city deserved to be called to task on it and I respectfully argue that Mr. Souza was wrong in his objections to my complaints–I stand by them.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
It’s time for Bob Weir to retire and for the City to hire a competent outsider.
This whole scenario is typical Davis city gov’t. Fly whatever might cause public uproar under the radar screen by placing it on the consent calendar. Souza is often complicit, along with his buddies Don Saylor and Ruth Asmundson, in using the consent calendar to stifle public comment.
After reading your article DPD, it doesn’t sound to me like there is going to be any meaningful discussion on the water tank. Bids have already been done, and the discussion is informational only. What that means is it is a done deal, but we’ll make the stupid folks of Davis think there is public discussion by having an “informational discussion” after the fact. Give me a break!
We need to remove A,S&S from the City Council, and ASAP…
Hey guttless gagging no bids have been received yet and any consent item can be removed for discussion.
if Council refuses to discuss it which is what happened. Why are they approving the acceptance of bids when they haven’t discussed the project yet? No need for insults here.
“Hey guttless gagging no bids have been received yet and any consent item can be removed for discussion.”
Bids are being received as we speak, to be submitted at the June 16 City Council meeting. There was some discussion last night, but the concrete tank was clearly a done deal, and the discussion pro forma. The City Council majority has managed to duck public comment yet again.