09-27-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 13, 2021 6:00 o’clock p.m. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Page 6 of 9 17. 2021 ROAD MAINTENANCE PROJECT – FEE ADJUSTMENT REQUEST – BOLTON AND MENK – Continued on the 18th week of construction which is more than the Company had estimated it would take. The work has been done in three separate phases and the way it has played out stretched it through the entire summer. At the end of August, they had reached their budget for the project. When the City approves not- to-exceed fees it is so both parties understand what they are getting into with the idea that at a point like this they can have a discussion about the way the project is playing out. Mr. Martini noted they are asking the City Council to consider extending the engineering fees on this to get them through mid-October to complete the job. Mayor Walsh asked how many roads were in the project this year. Mr. Martini replied there were a lot spread out. Mayor Walsh noted the Company knew there were a lot of roads and that it was spread out; the City looks to the Company to handle their own knowledge of what they are doing. He asked how does it become the City’s burden to now “unburden” Bolton and Menk on something that they did not know would get drawn out to October 15th? Mr. Martini said they are trying to make their best good-faith effort based on what they know about the project and how it is going to go. They also look to give the contractor the biggest window they can for construction because they get the best bid prices when they do that. However it is also done with the assumption that there will be some overlap and efficiencies in the way they approach it. To Mayor Walsh’s point, did the City do anything to cause it to play out this way? No. However, he would also suggest Bolton and Menk has not done anything to cause the way it has played out, either. Essentially they are asking to be paid for the services they are providing to the City. In this case they are providing more services than they initially estimated. Mayor Walsh noted the City does not know what goes into their estimates so that is hearsay in general. In all the years he has been here, he has never had Bolton and Menk come and say “the project went a lot easier than we thought…I want to give you back $25,000.” Mr. Martini said because the City approves it, it is a not-to-exceed amount based on an hourly amount. If the project went better than expected and estimated they would underrun the budget for the project, they would be done, and they would not be billing the City. There are many times when they get to the not-to- exceed, they do the work they need to do to get to the end and those costs go away. They show up on the invoices to show they have exceeded and there have been times where they have knowingly put a lot of their hours and staff time into those projects and not billed for them to be a good partner. He noted on one hand Mayor Walsh is right and there are times such as Walters Port Road in looking at the budget versus the actual engineering time that the City was billed and paid – there is significant difference to the credit of the City as to the services that were provided versus the fee that was approved. Mayor Walsh said does that mean Bolton and Menk is overbidding the City? Mr. Martini replied for every project they make a good-faith effort to try to get that fee to match the services they believe are being asked of them.