SLVWD Board Meeting Summary
November 8, 2023
Mark Dolson
Highlights:
Construction Change Orders for 2021 CIP Pipeline Project
Next Board meeting is at 6:30 PM on November 16th
Preliminaries
All five Directors were present. The Board President and Vice President were both attending remotely, so the Board voted unanimously to have Director Ackemann chair the meeting. Carly Blanchard was in attendance in her capacity as Acting General Manager.
There was no Closed Session prior to the meeting.
There were no additions or deletions to the agenda.
There were no public comments on items not on this evening’s meeting agenda.
New Business
Construction Change Orders for 2021 CIP Pipeline Project
District Engineer Garret Roffe introduced this agenda item. The $5 million 2021 CIP Pipeline Project replaces approximately 8,500 feet of pipeline across four locations along County and private roads. Staff was seeking Board approval of two change orders totaling $325,208 requested by JMB Construction related to road repair and paving. However, Garrett didn’t explain what work the change orders entailed, why the change orders were necessary, nor why consideration of the change orders necessitated calling a special meeting of the Board. As a result, much of the discussion by the Board was directed at understanding the issues. The Board also urged that future memos to the Board contain the information and reasoning necessary for Board members to make informed decisions.
The paving subcontractor was concerned that if the paving were done according to specifications, it would create drainage problems on private and County right of ways; hence, they suggested paving a larger area as one of the change orders. The other change order involved punching exploratory holes to find where County drainage manifolds had been accidentally paved over. The urgency for approving the change orders arose from the fact that asphalt paving is weather dependent, so failure to act quickly might delay the project until 2024. In addition, the cost might be higher because the paving company would have to mobilize a second time.
It wasn’t clear from the discussion whether the need for additional paving and for finding the paved-over drainage manifolds was the result of errors by the District in developing the specifications, lack of attention to a potential problem by JMB Construction, or lack of oversight by Sandis, the engineering consultant managing the project.
The Board also discussed the fact that the size of the change order exceeded the difference between the original bid by JMB Construction and the second lowest bid by Granite Rock Company. Along those same lines, the Board briefly discussed other change orders listed in the memo that, while not being considered at the meeting, seemed to require close scrutiny. These change orders requested reimbursement for costs associated with extra time required when crews encountered rock during pipe installation. Given that any bid should reflect the fact that a range of substrates will be encountered in laying pipe, these change orders seemed like an attempt to nickel-and-dime the District into paying a larger fee.
The motion to authorize the change orders passed 5-0.
The meeting adjourned at 6:45 PM.