ORDER-2020-76 : Authorizing a loan in the amount of $100,000 for costs of conducting a planning study and final design for repair or replace the Department of Public Works' Salt Shed.

Transcript (~28 min @ 2:24:48)

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▶ 2:24:45 Christopher Cinella: 11 yes excellent thank you thank you thank you 2020-76 authorizing in the bond a bond in the amount of 1 million 450,000 to replace the Department of Public Works salt shed

▶ 2:25:03 Christopher Cinella: you have any new information for us from prior meeting yes sorry I couldn't hear you for a

▶ 2:25:11 Speaker 9: second there so I did send out a couple of additional items of information today the we've drafted up the request for qualifications for design services we've estimated the design cost to be a hundred thousand dollars and the scope of services for that design contract would involve starting with an alternatives analysis to look at the existing structure what the you know what the limitations are I suppose you know if the council wanted us to look at the integrity of the existing structure as well we could do a quick analysis of that I will say to the point of one of the public commenters that there is sheathing underneath the roof on a large portion of the building just not the whole thing um if you look at the pictures you can see it so we can look a little bit more at the existing structure as part of that RFQ I wouldn't want to frankly spend a lot of time or money doing that because I really don't think that building is salvageable but if we want a structural engineer to say it's not then you know we can have somebody come in and take a look as part that that alternatives analysis the first phase of the design process um we have advertised for that rfq there's no financial obligation for having put the ad in the central register so we decided just to get the ad in there so that if it did get approved tonight we could move forward immediately given the time constraints constraints with the design um so so if you had a chance to take a look i know it just came through today but if you have to look at the scope of services the first task is to um i think it's actually shown as task two after project management is to uh present to us the cost benefit of the various different types of materials of construction different types of salt sheds so that we can then proceed with what we think works best for the city and is the most cost effective. I believe there was some language should the council choose to allocate just the design funds there was some revised bond language that would allow for that to happen if you so choose. And then the last bit of information that I was asked to follow up on was the potential for grant funding through MassDOT and I did correspond with our state aid contact at MassDOT District 4, and he indicated that the salt shed grant program ended actually a number of years ago, and that the reference on the website to the communities, how many communities have been helped by MassDOT for building salt sheds, that was largely through that grant program. However, they do still help communities, but they only help through the chapter 90 program and our annual chapter 90 allocation is on the order of 530 000 and we use that for the majority of our paving each year and sidewalk work um supplemented by whatever road bonds we end up having approved um but if we were to try to fund the salt shed with our chapter 90 funds that would mean nearly nearly three years of chapter 90 funds going solely to the salt shed and none left over for paving in those three years so um i would not recommend that approach

▶ 2:28:59 Christopher Cinella: any questions anybody raise their hands if you could raise your hand

▶ 2:29:09 John N. Tramontozzi: you have a question council tramitose yes thank you um so elena i um i i feel that we should at least have a structural engineer take a look at the existing building I agree don't spend a lot of money on it but I think we should for the sake of the the public and for our edification that we satisfy that it's not structurally sound and cannot be salvaged then we'll move on to the next step and the next step is I think there are alternatives to sheds that we definitely want to take a look at less expensive and potentially just as durable and and I would I would go along with the amendment by substitution of the the order as as directed in the email that we received from this committees so I would make that motion the who meant by substitution the order inserting the language of one council are we balancing that that amount not is

▶ 2:30:34 John N. Tramontozzi: this still in discussion before we vote on that order yes for sure and in I And I don't, I will withdraw that amendment, that motion to give an opportunity for others to discuss it, but we are in discussion, so.

▶ 2:30:46 Mark Garipay: I'll withdraw the second.

▶ 2:30:48 Speaker 6: Thank you. Councilman McNaught.

▶ 2:30:51 Jeff McNaught: My only question was, if we go the route of having another engineer look at the building, do we need to move forward with that amended motion?

▶ 2:31:01 Speaker 9: We don't currently have an engineer under contract to do anything with regard to this building. So the first step, no matter what we're going to do is to bring an engineer on board to do the alternatives analysis and then to design whatever that alternatives analysis decide, whatever we decide needs to be designed. So it's the procuring of a design consultant is what allows us to do a structural evaluation and alternatives analysis and a design. So we would still need to move forward with that.

▶ 2:31:35 Jeff McNaught: And I'm sorry, I should have been more clear would it cost the full hundred to do that?

▶ 2:31:41 Speaker 9: Whatever we end up designing, I believe will cost the full hundred because just the process of developing a set of CAD drawings and specifications that are appropriate for bidding in a low bid situation, that's the situation that we're always in is, even if the improvements ended up being something much less substantial than a brand new building, We still have to put that out to bid under mass procurement law, and we still have to pick the low bidder unless we have a really good reason not to. So we still need an extremely detailed set of plans and specifications. So one way or another, we have to go through that full design process.

▶ 2:32:22 Jeff McNaught: Thank you. And just for clarification, I am inclined to support the amended motion of my fellow councilor Chairman Tozzi. Thank you.

▶ 2:32:34 Speaker 6: Councilor Stewart.

▶ 2:32:36 Speaker 2: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

▶ 2:32:38 Robb Stewart: Thank you, Ms. Ferraro-Gonzalez. I appreciate you being with us tonight. I just wanted to offer that a constituent reached out today and shared about a salt shed that Fitchburg had built recently. It was completed in the fall of 2019. This was a replacement as it was stated. The prior structure was quote decades old and heavily deteriorated. There's a YouTube video out in public domain that you can see the shed, and it looks very, very similar to the shed that we are under consideration. The cost was 40% of what we're talking about here. The cost was $575,000 for that shed. I would encourage you to explore that. The commissioner of the public works, his name is Nicholas Bolsonaro. He's the one that's on the YouTube video that speaking about the newly constructed shed, it was supported by Mayor Steve Di Natale, which maybe Mayor Brodeur has a relationship with. So I would strongly encourage an exploration of why the cost was so much less, and if it is a similar construction value and comparable to what we're looking at today. So with that, I would support Mr. Tramontozzi's suggestion that we look at the alternative as well to see what it would take on a replacement cost as opposed to strictly a written replacement.

▶ 2:34:24 Paul Brodeur: Councilor Stewart, I just want to jump in here for a second and let you know, I am very familiar with Mayor Di Natale. We served together in the legislature um for a significant amount of time uh he's a good friend and i am happy to reach out to him to see how see how fitchburg made the magic happen

▶ 2:34:43 Speaker 9: and counselor stewart we will definitely take a look at what they did i'm i'm as interested as the council is in in alternative designs here um i agree that that it's a high price tag in that initial estimate that we got and i'm very interested in what else there is out

▶ 2:35:01 Robb Stewart: on the market yeah i would encourage you just to take a look at the uh the youtube it's like a two minute video but you get a pretty clear i mean it's got all the framing i don't know anything about this stuff but a lot of this you know the wooden framing structure and it looks like the same size and it's basically designed to you know have a truck drive in and pick up the salt and get the salt out of there right so i think that's what we're looking for so you know if we can do it for 600k i think that's a much better option than the 1.4 million you know just i i mentioned before

▶ 2:35:27 Paul Brodeur: when i did a perhaps subtle reference to this when i was talking about the generator i would like to spend zero on this this is not you know no one goes oh my god this guy's this guy's killing it and the council's killing it look at that salt shed right in this the best thing that you can probably say about a salt shed is that no one talks about it and hopefully no one talks about it for 20 years or whatever the lifespan of it is it is a very I'm not an engineer I have engineers in my family and I respect the wisdom of the craft to be sure the current structure is not viable but certainly we would I do this and I know this progress Ellis does as well as a value proposition we want the most bang for our buck we are not looking for the Cadillac I respectfully say I think that the mindful of we do have some aesthetic standards and we are probably not going to go the tarp it up and throw some tires on it it's the it's in the middle of the city and it's near some significant development either housing or the fields that we've done but no one is more interested in me than getting this you know getting the best value possible for our money absolutely Thank You mr. chair

▶ 2:37:04 Jack Eccles: it's getting late so just one quick question which is in your the original language of a memo that you wrote said that ideally next winter can you kind of either put that off the table that time line up the table or tell us what what how we could possibly meet that deadline it seems like if we're altering the way that the process as far as the design and design first that have entered that or eliminated so if you can just clarify yeah there's actually no change to the

▶ 2:37:32 Speaker 9: process right now in terms of the timeline because we did still advertise for the request for qualifications that document will be available next Wednesday so I have the opportunity to add in whatever language comes out of tonight in terms of you know a sentence about wanting a structural engineer to look at the existing structure and give an opinion on that so we're still on track with, we are as on track now as we were a couple weeks ago. We are still in an extremely aggressive time frame for having a new salt shed for next winter. But what I can say is that at least if we can get the design completed, out to bid, I don't know what the new salt shed is going to look like. Perhaps it's some sort of prefab, you know, a new foundation with a prefab structure that sits on top of it that just arrives one day in the city and gets placed on top of the foundation. That might be a very quick construction sequence. If it's building a truss structure like we have now, I would imagine that takes a lot longer. So, you know, until we really get into the design, we don't know whether it's going to be feasible or not, but we are going to push through this design phase as quickly as we can, as quickly as whatever consultant we bring on board can and get it up to bid as quickly as we can and then from there you know we we see where we end up and and what time of year it is thank you thomas thank you mr chairman uh director

▶ 2:39:14 Cory Thomas: proegas ellis um quickly uh in your professional opinion do you think the current salt shed as it currently is could survive another winter we had a very mild winter in 19 and 20 um there's no guarantee that 2021 will be another mild winter um what do you think of the

▶ 2:39:38 Speaker 9: state of our current salt shed uh i think i indicated last time that i did feel nervous being in it um i felt like it was you know one small accident away from from the potential for something to collapse um if we're in a situation where we have to get by with it for one more winter we will just do everything we can to do that safely um but i would love to see it gone

▶ 2:40:10 Cory Thomas: before the winter and and and again briefly um once we have a design engineer you know we can kind of you know give that design engineer within the realm of what he's calling for you know the guidelines of whether we want a canopy style or a truss style salt shed and we can kind of steer within the realm of his professional opinion as well right what we're looking for

▶ 2:40:33 Speaker 9: yeah the way the rq is written they would give us an alternatives analysis just outlining here are the possible types of salt sheds that you could put on that site um here's a conceptual cost estimate and here are the pros and cons and then we pick what we want and then that's what they design so that's the way it's written great thank you so much okay you're

▶ 2:40:57 Christopher Cinella: welcome anybody else that i missed um see any other hands go up what is the will of this committee council tramitosa do you want to reintroduce yeah so um i'll re rephrase it then

▶ 2:41:19 John N. Tramontozzi: that at this time i'll uh move to uh substitute uh strike that to amend the motion by substituting the language that bond council has offered to us and i believe everybody has a copy of it and that is being ordered by the city council at the sum of one hundred thousand dollars hereby is appropriated to pay cost of conducting a planning study and final design for replacing the department of public works salt shed etc etc I think that the committee has the proposed language. I do. Does everybody have the proposed language or read it?

▶ 2:42:02 Jeff McNaught: Yes. I second that motion.

▶ 2:42:07 Christopher Cinella: On discussion, is there any discussion? So we have a motion on the floor. Councilor Tramontozzi, seconded by Councilor McNaught to amend the order.

▶ 2:42:19 Speaker 1: Councilor Stewart has his hand up.

▶ 2:42:21 Speaker 6: Councilor Stewart.

▶ 2:42:23 Robb Stewart: Point of clarification, what is the amended language?

▶ 2:42:43 John N. Tramontozzi: All right, I'll read the amended language, that the order be, the language be substituted as follows, that the city council, by order of the city council, that the sum of $100,000 be in hereby is appropriated to pay costs for conducting a planning study and final design for replacing the Department of Public Works salt shed, including the payment of all costs incidental and related thereto. and that to meet this appropriation the treasurer with the approval of the mayor is authorized to borrow said amount under under and pursuant to mass general laws chapter 44 section 7 subsection 7 are pursuant to any other enabling authority and to issue bonds or notes of the city therefore and that any premium received upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this order unless any such premium applied to the payment of the cost of issuance of such bonds or notes may be applied to the payment of costs approved by this order in accordance with Mass General Laws Chapter 44, Section 20, thereby reducing the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such costs by a like amount. Mr. Chairman? Yes, Counselor? Has the motion already been made

▶ 2:43:49 Shawn M. MacMaster: and seconded because I just had one point on discussion? Yep, no, we're still on discussion,

▶ 2:43:54 Christopher Cinella: but it has been made and seconded but go ahead thank you mr chairman the one concern that i have

▶ 2:44:00 Shawn M. MacMaster: is this language suggests that we are going to replace as opposed to potentially repair and i'm wondering whether or not that language should say to repair or replace depending on what the structural engineer determines and what the assessment determines so i just feel like we're we're getting a little too far ahead of ourselves if it says replace, because to me that would, we all know something needs to happen. And as the mayor said, this isn't the type of order I think he wants to send before us. I credit the mayor he's sending it before us because something has to happen. But I'm not convinced yet that it has to be replaced if we haven't had an engineer conduct a study yet. So that's my concern. If the language is as it is, would be inclined not to support it based on that that one issue if if it was the will of the committee to withdraw both the motion for passage and the second and add in the word repair I would be more comfortable with that I

▶ 2:45:09 John N. Tramontozzi: point of order if I could well taken and what I could suggest is that we insert the word repair and or replace on the third line of that order where it says replacing. So conducting a planning study and final design for repairing or replacing the Department of

▶ 2:45:39 Speaker 1: Public Works. Mr. Tramontozzi, might I suggest pulling in Art Flavin, who's in queue?

▶ 2:45:44 Christopher Cinella: Do we have Solicitor Van Kampen with us as well?

▶ 2:45:48 Speaker 1: We do, only because this is from Bond Council. Bring them in. Yep, we're doing that right now.

▶ 2:45:59 Speaker 1: Chairman Sinella, would you like Patrick as well, the city auditor? Or no?

▶ 2:46:04 Jeff McNaught: May I suggest that we at least remove the motion and the second? I think we're pretty confident we're doing that. I'll remove my second, John.

▶ 2:46:14 John N. Tramontozzi: I will draw the motion to rest so we can resolve this can you hear us yes can you

▶ 2:46:36 John N. Tramontozzi: hear me yes can you hear us I can hear you pay attention I'm not I did you did you hear what I have to say about the I was reading the order and exactly as written except that we wanted to on a concern from some of the council members

▶ 2:46:51 Speaker 11: to add repair or replace on the third line of that order well in my opinion i mean the language

▶ 2:46:57 Speaker 6: you have in front of you is from bond council that would be legal and what we can do going forward

▶ 2:47:10 Speaker 6: if out of this hundred thousand dollars that you spend and it comes more more better for lack of a

▶ 2:47:19 Speaker 6: better word to repair it which is probably highly unlikely that would be allowed this is a hundred thousand dollars to look at the plan and design it doesn't say it doesn't need to say repair if part of the plan and design process is repair so be it and they come up with a number for that they can come up with a number for repair and they can come up with the number for replace we're splitting hairs here I think it's important with the timeline to go forward I think if you want to add that language we'd have to go back to bond council we'd be another week and another meeting and another solution I'm not sure that's where we want to go with this I think it's $100,000 to look at the situation in my opinion and then they will come back with planned design studies planned design studies could be repair i'm done thank you

▶ 2:48:26 Robb Stewart: thank you mr chairman uh i i don't think we're splitting hairs i think it's necessary to have that language in there um because when i read design for replacing that to me limits ourselves and i think we need to have in consideration the repairing option as well as the replacing election so uh from my standpoint i don't think this is splitting hairs thank you mr chair

▶ 2:48:54 Jeff McNaught: mr city solicitor do you agree with mr flavin's interpretation of the language or do you think we

▶ 2:49:03 Speaker 11: should add in repair or replace well as i was listening to the debate and i heard council mcmaster's comment i frankly the amendment is insignificant if you want to add the word or repair to the order i don't see that as a substantial change to the to the language that's been prepared by bond council so i i think quite frankly to move this process along the amendment uh to the extent that is the will of this body feel free to make it this evening so that we can move this forward i think the priority here is to move the project forward and adding that word or that phrase or repair in my estimation is relatively insignificant yeah all right

▶ 2:49:44 Cory Thomas: group thomas yeah just back on discussion um the hundred thousand dollars we're looking forward for the design engineer is that part of the 1.45 bond amount yes all right thank you anybody else

▶ 2:49:59 Speaker 6: that's a completely separate and distinct order right right

▶ 2:50:08 Speaker 6: yeah for a hundred thousand you're only committing a hundred thousand right now

▶ 2:50:12 Speaker 9: all right i think the question was just was the hundred thousand part of the original 1.45 million cost estimate which it was okay council chairman says do you want to reintroduce your motion

▶ 2:50:30 John N. Tramontozzi: adding a new language yes thank you so um i will i will move that uh we substitute the following

▶ 2:50:39 Speaker 11: language to order 2020-76 and that is that be ordered by the City Council that

▶ 2:50:47 John N. Tramontozzi: the sum of $100,000 be in hereby is appropriated to pay cost of conducting a planning study in final design for repairing or replacing the Department of public works salt shed including the payment of all costs incidental and related there too that to meet this appropriation the treasurer with the approval of the mayor is authorized to borrow said amount under the under and pursuant to master the laws chapter 44 section 7 subsection 7 are pursuant to any other enabling authority and to issue bonds or notes of the city therefore and that any premium received upon the sale of any bonds or notes approved by this order, plus any such premium applied to the payment of the cost of issuance of such bonds or notes, may be applied to the payment of costs approved by this order in accordance with Mass General Laws Chapter 44, Section 20, thereby reducing the amount authorized to be borrowed to pay such cost by a like amount.

▶ 2:52:09 Speaker 2: Second. Second.

▶ 2:52:11 Christopher Cinella: so we have a second to amend this motion to amend this order by councilor Tramontozzi ozzy $100,000 I'm not going to read the whole thing seconded by councilor Garipay madam clerk please call the roll

▶ 2:52:25 Speaker 1: vice-chair Migliorelli yes also Tramontozzi ozzy yes McMaster yes McNaught. Yes. Councilor Eccles. Yes. Councilor Garipay. Yes. Councilor Stewart. Yes. Councilor

▶ 2:52:47 Speaker 1: Thomas. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Yes. Councilor Grigoraitis. Yes. Chair

▶ 2:52:57 Christopher Cinella: Senella yes yes clerk we just make sure that this is attached to yes sir we have

▶ 2:53:03 Christopher Cinella: order number 20 20-79 the establishment of an OSHA reserve