ORDER-2021-152 : Authorizing a Bond for the replacement of the Salt Shed.

Transcript (~16 min @ 1:28:04)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 1:28:07 Speaker 11: Director probably yes, I'll give a quick intro and then I'll also turn it over to Jim in case he has anything he'd like to add. He's been managing this project. As, you know, we came before you many months ago to talk about the salt shed and at that time I shared everybody's view that. The 1.45Million that we were requesting at that time was an awful lot of money for a. Wooden structure and a foundation that's in essence. A, um, a giant garage with nothing in it. So, um. While I 100% shared the council's thought that we could hopefully do something for less money and initially our consultant had provided estimates that we could do something for less money, which. Um, they were initially estimating our construction bids would come in around 900,000 for. the selected option which was the high arch gambrel style shed. The impact that the materials costs have had on the industry and nationwide as far as I'm told has driven the costs up as well as our unfortunate discoveries on our soil testing which were as bad as we thought they might be um which requires quite a bit of remediation as we install the foundation for the new salt shed so we now have bids in hand our low bidder is roughly 1.4 million and with the construction services that we need and um and contingency we are at a total including the hundred thousand you approved previously were a total of 1.75 million um and in speaking to patrick delarusso his feeling is that the um we can't count on the market coming back down this is this is our best opportunity to perform this project it fits within the capital plan if it's within our five percent bonding goal um we have the money now and uh you know the materials cost might come back down but the interest rates could go back up and over the life of the of the loan we could end up spending more money if we push this off um so i'm going to turn it over to jim so he can tell you some of the highlights of the option that we selected

▶ 1:30:42 Speaker 10: and what some of the benefits are thank you very much and um especially thank you to the Council for this consideration. I think we've expressed over the last week the sense of urgency we have to get this replaced. We understand the costs that came in are a significant consideration and are worthy of the scrutiny that you're all putting in on this topic. But I think we have definitely expressed a sense of urgency to try to get this done. I think the highlights of what we are trying to accomplish. I do have to commend Weston and Sampson for putting in front of us three different options for consideration and one was the canvas top structure, the second was the high arch gambrel, and the third was basically the similar structure to what we have now. When we looked at all the benefits of each of the three structures, we thought that the value of the high arch gambrel definitely outweighed any of the cost savings, replacement costs, maintenance costs, and things like that that came with the other structures. Not only would the structure fit in basically a 30-year plan for us, it also afforded us a quite a few benefits included some increased storage due to the smaller footprint we'd be able to house more salt and as I pointed out we basically throw between 600 and 800 ton of salt per storm the current capacity is roughly a 1200 ton so you got maybe a storm a storm and a half worth of salt and that in that structure as it is the A new structure would give us approximately 1,400 ton in storage, so it'll allow us to respond to some of those long drawn out storms that we definitely experience in the city. But the bottom line is through various tours and pictures and things like that, that we've shown, we definitely have shown the need for the structure. But what comes with this price are added ground improvements, stormwater improvements. The benefit to El Pond is definitely tangible. And then some of the things that we didn't foresee that unfortunately were a requirement of the testing and everything like that that came along with Weston and Sampson's process was some contaminated soils. And that's an important thing. No matter what they did, we would have discovered this through that vetting process. And now, unfortunately, we're forced to deal with this. This project right now allows us to take care of this right now, along with getting a new and updated structure, as well as some significant efficiencies to the operations that we deliver through some critical events that definitely affect public safety. Again, I thank you very much for your consideration on this project and can't stress enough the sense of urgency that that is in front of the DPW with this with this replacement. So, thank you.

▶ 1:33:49 Jeff McNaught: Thank you Mr. Troop. Thank you, Director Proekes-Ellis. Councillor is in queue. I haven't seen any hands raised.

▶ 1:34:07 Mark Garipay: Seeing none, Councillor Garipay? Thank you, Ms. Proekes-Ellis. Thank you, Mr. Troop for for reaching out. We had a great conversation last week regarding the salt shed. I totally agree with you that something needs to be done. It's something that needs to be replaced. It's just what value and what cost are we looking at? Do we look at something? I know we took the middle one, the high gambrel, but the DCR, as we had a conversation, The MassDOT who build a lot more salt sheds seem to be going with the canvas ones for less money and that are that are portable. I totally agree with you that this needs to happen. I just, I struggle with 1.7Million dollars for a salt shed On a piece of property that is part of our master plan that was identified in the master plan, part of the real card for potentially development. And we're going to be investing into a 1.7Million 1.7Million dollars. Salt shed and amateurizing that over 30 years. Um, there's a lot that that can happen. Um, so I. I struggle, I struggle with this. I. I commend on all both of both of you had work on this. I just struggle with the dollar amount and I cannot support this at this moment.

▶ 1:35:36 Cory Thomas: Councilor Thomas. Thank you. Mr. Chairman director. The troop welcome. Um, this race, thank you very much too. Um. I appreciate all the time that everyone took, um. It's pretty solution and we've talked at great length about this before Mr troop. It was great to be on the city with you last Friday talking to you and Mr Antonio. I had a long conversation. With Patrick, you know, and he explained, you know, that. This can fit into our long term plan budget over 30 years. Um, but again, my counselor, they said, um. The need is there. Absolutely. Um, you know, I was uncomfortable being in the salt chair Late week. Um, just because of the decay and the breakdown of this of the structure, but the price tag is so much, um. Director, thank you so much for, you know, saying, you know, you, you previously said in front of this board. That 1.4 was worst case scenario, you know, and here we are, you know, a year later and the worst case scenario has gone up as well. Um. I'd love to see other options. Councilor Stewart. I know asked her last year if there was other options. I believe he found another option for for, um. Assault shed under a 1Million dollars, whether that still get that. Here we are a year later during after a pandemic, I think most everyone knows that the cost of construction materials has gone up. Um, but again, you know, that that price tag is is so much for the taxpayers and mowers. Um. But thank you for coming here. I appreciate all you've done to this point right now. Thank you.

▶ 1:37:18 Jeff McNaught: Any other counselors with any questions or comments.

▶ 1:37:31 Jack Eccles: Vice chair, I lost my mute button. Um, I was just looking at the. Western Samson report. And I completely lost what I was looking at, but it was looking at the fabric structure versus the high gambrel structure. It looked like the initial what's classified as like the initial capital cost was only off by about $100,000-ish, maybe $200,000. So I guess my question would be, is the difference between the $911,000, $911,000 that's listed for the high gambrel and the $1.6 million on the order, that $700,000, is that part of the site-specific construction costs? And would those be kind of baked into some of the other models as well?

▶ 1:38:21 Speaker 11: Oh, we had Weston and Sampson rerun the cost estimates from their original analysis during the bidding period because they started telling us right as we were getting the bid documents out they were telling us about the the how the costs have been driven up by the market for the materials and how the soils were really going to impact our overall cost and so i requested that they redo their cost estimates for all three options so that we knew we were comparing apples to apples because i didn't want to come before the board tonight with a 1.75 million dollar project and have it be compared to an 800 000 dollar fabric structure because that's no longer the reality so when they re-ran those numbers the the total cost estimate for the high arch gambrel was 1.71 million and i'll just note that that didn't include the 100 000 for design so in essence it was really 1.81 million this was before we opened bids so the bids came in a little bit lower than they projected um but for the purpose of this discussion they were comparing a 1.71 million dollar design to a 1.3 million dollar um cost for the uh the fabric shed when you take into account the um the cost as they stand now and the soil conditions so we're looking at about a 400 000 difference um but part of that difference is uh the as jim mentioned this the high arch gambrel design can fit in a smaller footprint so the high arch gambrel design also includes a canopy off the back to give us covered storage in that additional 20 or so feet off the back where we're very tight on storage space right now at the city yard um and so so there's that advantage that's not included in the fabric structure there's also the the fact that we're designing this structure to be solar ready so we can put solar panels on this high arch gambrel roof it will afford us a nice large area to put some solar panels and get more um credits if we if we are feeding that back into the grid so there's a potential long-term savings or revenue generation there the fabric structure cannot accommodate the solar unless they did say that you you can find ways to retrofit to put the solar panels on the fabric but you have to take them off each time the fabric needs to be replaced which is not practical in any way. So those are just a couple of the advantages that go along with the with the hierarchic umbrella design. So it is a $400,000 difference, but in my mind, to pay $1.7 million for a structure that's going to last 50 years, that's going to be sort of permanently in place, as compared to paying $1.3 million for something that can tear or have has to be replaced every 10 years um once you're into those dollar values i just i can't see paying 1.3 million for for a fabric arch on a foundation and into your to your

▶ 1:41:52 Jack Eccles: point um if we were to pass on this that one hundred thousand dollars would also be sunk

▶ 1:42:02 Speaker 11: potentially yeah so the 100 000 that the request before you tonight is for 1.65 million for a total bond amount of 1.75 million so the hundred thousand that you've already approved is um is is counted there as already approved and then the 1.65 million is the remainder

▶ 1:42:24 Jack Eccles: awesome yeah thanks thanks for all that um i was i was able to take a tour of the salt should this morning and i heard this afternoon i definitely think it could use a replacement i am inclined to agree with you that you know the 400 000 when you when you really add it up and the operational benefits that that that's going to yield for you it seems to make sense to me i'm i'm in support of this thank you thank you councillor mcmaster thank you mr chairman

▶ 1:42:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: uh good evening director paraka solace and mr troop i i agree with councillor garapan councillor Councillor Thomas, really anything over a million dollars for a building that houses salt is really a nonstarter for me. And frankly, I'd be reticent to support a bond for any new or improved building without there having been any movement, any direction whatsoever on the state of our public safety building. So I won't be willing to support this tonight.

▶ 1:43:31 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Councillor Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Director Parokasalis and Mr. Troop for being here tonight. Ms. Parokasalis, the Weston and Sampson quote that you have, I'm just trying to understand the process. Did they go out and solicit bids from different subcontracting vendors and they are presenting the lowest cost based on subcontracting vendors or did they just provide the three alternative quotes based on the three construction on that that's where i'm a little confused i'm gonna pause everyone right here

▶ 1:44:10 Jeff McNaught: because i just noticed we need to gavel into the city council meeting so i apologize for that um if i could get a motion to recess we'll come right back to counselor stewart after we do that um I'll entertain a motion. Thank you, Councilor Stewart.