09-26-2022 City Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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MINUTES OF THE ORONO CITY COUNCIL MEETING September 26,2022 6:00 o'clock p.m. are at 8,300 people.As a previous gentleman stated they have not added roads and he would like to give a statistic.In the whole City,only 33%of the people utilize water and sewer,37%utilize sewer and private water,and 31%do not utilize either sewer or water.He does not think it is fair for those people to be paying for Public Works to service other cities.The revenue they are receiving from Spring Park is under $200,000 which is really peanut butter and jelly.Mr.Jabbour stated they have 48 miles of local roads,20 miles of private roads that citizens pay to plow on their own,and 30-40 miles of County Roads.At the time they built the current building,Mr.Jabbour made an arrangement to purchase land from the school to add to it,which is perhaps what they referred to as the swamp earlier. He really urges the City to quit spending that kind of money and thinks it is City Hall going a little bit on the wild side in spending. Mayor Walsh noted the Public Works people are not just plowing roads,they do a lot of things in this City,and the City must take care of them, along with many other things. A member of the public asked regarding the wetland on the site of the current Public Works building,is there a reason they cannot do the wetland overlay replacement on what is already owned. Mayor Walsh clarified they did a facility analysis, spent a lot of time with the architects,months with Public Works,noting they did a lot of homework on it.He shared they could not do it over there because there is not enough room. Crosby clarified if they filled in the wetland,there is still not enough room there for the site. Mayor Walsh stated the new site has 28 acres. Edwards noted the City could buy an extreme number of wetland credits to fill in the large wetland over here but the project would have become astronomically expensive because there is not very much dry, buildable land on the second lot to the northeast of the existing facility. Barbara Schmidt is sure someone has checked into the construction company and noted when googling them,up comes the Labors District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota warning of an evident pattern of poor performance by Ebert Construction.It is a two page document listing five projects where they did not meet standard and have been cited. Mayor Walsh noted Ms. Schmidt can send that to Edwards. Crosby moved to award the Public Works Facility construction to Ebert Construction for $16,067,000 and authorize the purchase of the wetland credit at$94,655.88. Johnson asked if they can make a motion to draft the approval so the City can look at the question regarding Ebert Construction. Crosby accepted the friendly amendment to draft the Resolution for approval. Johnson seconded.Ayes 4,Nays 0. FINANCE DIRECTOR REPORT Finance Director Olson had nothing to report. CITY ATTORNEY REPORT Attorney Mattick had nothing to report. Page 9 of 13