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MINUTES OF THE <br />ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING <br />Monday, May 11, 2020 <br />6:00 o’clock p.m. <br />_____________________________________________________________________________________ <br /> <br />Page 13 of 22 <br /> <br />stumbling over its feet. The wheel does not need to be re-created; best practices are out there. Orono is <br />doing it the hard way; Orono can copy from people who are doing it right. The City is kind of creating <br />their own problems in many ways with the way things come to the Council. If the proposal had been put <br />together with “These are the issues all the way up to this point,” the decision becomes easy and probably <br />would have happened well before this time. <br /> <br />Crosby said the Council wants to be proactive rather than reactive. He added he believes Rief received the <br />message. <br /> <br />Rief agreed that he did. <br /> <br />16. TERMINATION OF CLEANING CONTRACT <br /> <br />Edwards said that for a number of years the City has had a cleaning contract, which, since 2012, has been <br />with Vanguard Cleaning. The performance of the current contractor is subpar and has been declining <br />significantly over recent months. The City required the overarching contractor to change out their crew to <br />try to address the issue. The City is now on the third crew in the last 12 months; this crew has been <br />cleaning the last month or so. There has not been an improvement in performance; in fact, there have been <br />more issues such as lack of vacuuming. He noted Seals asked Rief to put the item on the agenda. He <br />stated most of the department heads concur that the contract should be terminated. The discussion or <br />disagreement will be what the City should do to move forward. Staff recommends termination of the <br />contract. The contract has a 30-day termination notice built into it. If Council approves the termination, <br />notice would be given the following day. The Staff member who manages the contract within the City has <br />been considering ways the City might improve how cleaning is conducted. He said Orono has such a <br />small number of facilities that it is not anyone’s first priority when it comes to providing a service. In <br />addition, having a Police Department attached is somewhat unique in the cleaning world, and having <br />people cleared to enter, unescorted, into the Police Department has provided challenges. In addition, the <br />scope of work outlined is perhaps too much and more than what the City needs. He proposed, as an <br />interim solution with the possibility of it becoming permanent, that the City absorb the cleaning <br />responsibilities within one of the seasonal positions, which is a Parks Maintenance worker, by changing <br />that position from a Parks Maintenance seasonal position to a part-time Custodian and Groundskeeper <br />position. It would amount to taking the existing Parks Maintenance position and adding some cleaning <br />tasks to it. They believe the cleaning level needed in the facilities could be handled by a person in about 2 <br />hours a day if the tasks were distributed throughout the day. Currently, the City pays $33,000 a year for <br />the cleaning contract. Eliminating the contract by using a part-time person could be a potential savings <br />achieved of roughly $12,000 a year. He has been talking with several department heads for a while, and <br />as they were soliciting for the regular seasonal positions, they included the position in the solicitation. If <br />the Council is amenable, the current Parks Maintenance worker could be moved to the new <br />Custodian/Groundskeeper position, as he was selected for the Parks position with the thought he might <br />perform both positions. <br /> <br />Printup said he supports the plan; it is a good and solid plan. It is not increasing anything; it is moving <br />things around. He asked why this well-developed plan was not brought up earlier. The Council recently <br />learned the cleaning problem is 10-20 years old, and he can remember talking to a past Administrator and <br />trying to figure out what could be done to mitigate some things about the cleaning services. Many years <br />later, a well-thought-out plan is falling into place. As Johnson indicated, he would prefer the proactive <br />piece rather than the reactive piece and succession planning that was talked about. He said the plan fits <br />the City well and there are cost-savings. He suggested again the savings could go to a fall clean-up.