Council says no to Avenue H cost change

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HR Green wants $143,000 bump in inspection costs

BY CHUCK VANDENBERG
PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - A recommendation, of sorts, was put in front of the Fort Madison City Council Tuesday to approve a $143,000 increase in inspection costs on the city's 10th to 18th Street Avenue H reconstruction project. But the council voted unanimously to deny the added costs.

According to a report that was presented to the council with a recommendation from Public Works Director Mark Bousselot and City Manager David Varley, costs were reduced on the inspections because HR Green, the city's engineer on the project, anticipated having a cost-share on the inspection costs with another project being done simultaneously.

Bousselot told the council that, due to timing changes on the 20th to 30th Street resurfacing, there are no longer simultaneous projects happening at that time so the cost-sharing can't take place. HR Green was asking the city to shift all the costs of inspections during that time to full-time inspection on the 10th to 18th project. They also added an additional five weeks of inspections due to the project most likely requiring more than one construction season.

Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld said Green, who's been the city's engineering firm to date on the two other Business 61 reconstruction projects, included the cost of the inspection as part-time in their scope of work, so full-time work and its related increased costs, shouldn't be needed.

MOHRFELD

"I believe we'll start out here, that I'm adamantly opposed to this change at this point in this project," Mohrfeld said.

Bousselot said that, although he signed the agreement as a recommendation, he was just getting the information in front of the council.

"I'm not necessarily on board with the five weeks at this point in time and I've expressed that to them. You have it now with the increase of 20 to 40 hours plus the five weeks at that $143,015. If you guys weren't wanting to do the five weeks you could amend it down to $119,912 which would get them from 20 to 40 for the 41 weeks," Bousselot said.

Councilwoman Rebecca Bowker asked if the extra inspection would identify the issues after they've been completed. Mohrfeld said they were construction observations.

"We have a document from HR Green which is a proposal on a project they designed of that highway and a proposal for management of this project... It says in their proposal that it would take 24 hours per week to do this. It does not say in hopes there would be another job we could piggy-back this to," Mohrfeld said.

"That's $140,000, we could run construction management on a consolidated public works department for that."

"For them to design and present this to us and now come back to us and ask for $140,000 from arguably not a discount firm in the first place, I think is an insult to this council."

Bousselot said it's important to have someone on site watching the project.

"There's a lot of things that can happen when you're not on site and you depend on your contractor. When you put things in the ground and cover them up if you're not there observing....," Bousselot said.

Mohrfeld said there were misplaced drains on top of 15th Street that were put in with an inspector on site on that one.

"Yes you did. Yes you did," Bousellot agreed.

Mohrfeld said Bousselot did have concerns about the added costs in conversations they have had about the amendment.

Councilman Tom Schulz said he had a problem with extending it five weeks.

"This is a project that hasn't even started yet. To me that's like saying, "Hey, let's plan to fail."

Bowker said she didn't want the project unnecessarily delayed or to fail because of an inspector not being on site, nor to hear five years later that the contractor screwed up and the inspector didn't catch the issue.

"I'm a little frustrated but I would like to revisit this," Bowker said.

Mohrfeld called for the vote and the increase was voted down unanimously.

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