Will County Board Capital Improvements Committee met July 5.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mrs. Berkowicz led the Pledge of Allegiance.
III. ROLL CALL
Vice Chair Joe VanDuyne called the meeting to order at 10:03 AM
| Attendee Name | Title | Status | Arrived |
| Herbert Brooks Jr. | Chair | Present | |
| Joe VanDuyne | Vice Chair | Present | |
| Julie Berkowicz | Member | Present | |
| Natalie Coleman | Member | Present | |
| Gretchen Fritz | Member | Absent | |
| Donald Gould | Member | Absent | |
| Meta Mueller | Member | Present | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Absent | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Present |
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
1. WC Capital Improvements Committee - Regular Meeting - May 3, 2022 10:00 AM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Joe VanDuyne, Vice Chair SECONDER: Meta Mueller, Member AYES: Brooks Jr., VanDuyne, Berkowicz, Coleman, Mueller, Traynere ABSENT: Fritz, Gould, Parker |
1. RNG Facility Construction Update/Financial Summary
(Christina Snitko)
Mr. Kozak explained the general overview of the RNG facility construction. Getting media and other things for the initiative process coming up in August. Construction of the parking lot will be weather dependent and that’s just being left out for convenience being put at the very end so, there’s no heavy equipment running over it.
Ms. Berkowicz asked where is the material and the spare parts and extra material stored?
Mr. Kozak answered there is a tool room right next to the office basically used as a shop area. It's a small, dedicated space in the building.
Mr. Moustis asked when do you anticipate the commissioning to take place?
Mr. Kozak answered it’s going to be a stage process that will probably start happening in the next month.
Mr. Moustis asked you will do the actual commissioning and make sure things are working as designed?
Mr. Hartke responded design engineering SCS provides the staff to do that commissioning work. Each manufacturer comes and test their equipment. SCS comes out and does all the programming testing to get everything in conjunction with each other. During that phase we have electricians and pipefitters on staff to help assist them to help adjust systems. It’s multi-layer steps with many, many people involved to make sure things are working right but, SCS is the lead on it. Making sure the parts and pieces are working and everything is communicating properly.
Ms. Berkowicz asked do you have an approximate date when this plant will begin operations?
Mr. Hartke responded the most recent schedule provided by SCS engineers which was in collaboration with Harbor expected commissioning date August 2. There’s a reliability test that is scheduled for September 19. It is expected that the first gas September 27 is on the schedule. That’s the schedule they provided to us early last week. There are change orders that have been placed on the Executive Committee to complete some of these final utility connections. I want to make you aware that there are 8 additional change orders. One of them is the electricity from the gas to electric plant will have to be one main trunk line that has to be switched over to the RNG Plant which will leave that facility with no electricity at all. We are required to still provide that plant electricity because Waste Management still owns and operates that facility so, they have 12 months to decommission that they do need some electricity connection to complete their work. The cheapest option and yet the best option is to have it come from the RNG Plant over to the gas to electric plant and pulling a cable through for that and that could be used later if we decide to keep that building for providing electricity to it. There are 2 change orders related to that. One is power to conduit plant that’s $7,000.00 approximately and then there’s power cable to gas to electric plant approximately $12,000.00. These two will be on the County Executive Committee Agenda. Number 7 is a change order for the gravel stone around the back side of the plant that was not included in the original design and that’s $70,000.00 to complete that. Change order 8 is an internet flare and communication connection. We must have high speed internet to the facility to monitor the facility operations. The connection for fiber was not included in the original contract so, AT& T is going to be installing everything up to the pole, but we must have underground conduit cable pulled underground and that is approximately $115,000.00.
Ms. Mueller asked what’s flare communication?
Mr. Hartke replied there will be time when the RNG Plant will have to be shut down for maintenance or if there is a problem will have to be shut down. In that case they cannot handle the gas coming to the RNG Plant so, it communicates to landfill layers letting them know about the RNG Plant shutdown and then the landfill gas layers will kick on and burn that gas and that’s to prevent any air pollution violations.
Mr. Fricilone asked these expenses that we’re occurring because the design company didn’t further amend; aren’t they liable for anything?
Mr. Hartke responded the access road I honestly can’t explain why that was not included originally. All the utility connections were not included in the proposal I believe because those costs really weren’t known. They couldn’t anticipate what type of cost we were going to have for connecting. For some of these things like the internet they wouldn’t have known what kind or type of internet connection needed.
Mr. Brooks asked the designer would have known that when they designed it?
Mr. Hartke responded they wouldn’t have known that unless it was predetermined way before the proposal was done or the County was letting them know what we were going to be using.
Mr. Fricilone commented they knew we needed something, and they missed it in the design. Are we asking them to participate in some of these things that they missed?
Mr. Van Duyne commented I agree with Mr. Fricilone, for someone to design something that does not include a conduit for internet connection is a total oversite $115,000.00 for a conduit. What size are we talking and how far of a run do you know?
Mr. Kozak commented the utility connection and all that is not part of our contract; it is part of the design contract. I believe the way it was setup in their contract that utilities brought to the County by others, and I think that were a lot of that sight unseen. I don’t think it was missed they knew it was there, but it was by others the way I see it.
Mr. Moustis commented I think personally they were trying present a project that would appear to have the least amount of cost and it turned out that it was a lot more complex than presented to us from the beginning. I think some of this must fall on us the County because this is what we put out there. I assumed that they met the scope of the work and if that scope of the work was not complete enough, then shame on us.
Ms. Berkowicz notes this was a huge oversite. My greatest fear right now is that we don’t know what additional expenses are going to come forward because the contract we have is not all in and all these new costs keep surfacing so, can we ask the contractors to provide us with a list of what they anticipate they are going to need in the future to get us up and running? A report submitted to us with any unexpected work or anything that is not covered without current contract.
Mr. Hartke responded we do that in our meetings every week. That’s where these changes come from indicating what we have left as far as we understand. These remaining items; the utility connection is a very complex project and we’re coming to final phase and trying to tie up loose ends which are really electricity and natural gas and how do you get rid of the waste. These change orders really sum up from what we fully understand from this point is what is removed and what is still needed.
Mr. Kozak commented the one thing I can say is the contract with SCS I’m not sure of all the details of it but a lot of these change orders that Mr. Hartke is talking about are not things that popped up in the last week or so, they been around for a little while and going through design and a couple of things with and we went back and went through the original design and went through a couple of options; went back and tried to negotiate and work out some details so, it’s not like we’re just passing things along, we’ve been trying to work out options for doing this.
Ms. Ogalla commented having been a project manager not for this but for large IT systems I had to be responsible for every step and if I wasn’t listing every step that I needed in my project; it was going to fail and that seems to be what’s happening here. It doesn’t seem possible that these issues keep popping up and we have unknown things happen as we did in the past. These things seem to be about things you’ve known about. If you have 12 months to decommission a building something got to operate it because you need electricity for that. That is a lack of project planning on whoever did that. This is something that continues to happen on this project and a couple of other projects and the County cannot keep passing funds along. When we started on this project it was a lot less cost than what it is now. I think we need to have more detailed specification in future projects because of the lack of planning on this project. To me it is unacceptable as a project manager. You should know what’s going on and yes there will be things to popup that’s unknown at the time but, some of these things should have been known and unacceptable.
Mr. Hartke stated some of these items we anticipated a long time ago; it’s just the cost and change orders are rising now because of the design being complete for them. I apologize if we have not been as clear or transparent on some of these things coming up, they were items we were aware of and trying to determine how to deal with and make sure in some cases how things were going to progress with the schedule. Sometimes we have certain entities like natural gas or utility we’re not sure what cooperation or what speed they are going to work in. Sometimes were not able to let you know what’s happening at this point or what exactly what’s going to be the next step because were trying to figure that out ourselves. Somethings just must be determined.
Ms. Ventura asked in other bids done for the County were the connection cost, labor cost, conduit cost included in their bids, or did they not include that?
Mr. Hartke answered I was not at the stage of review of the bids when they came in so, I’m not sure what the others inputted in their bids.
Ms. Ventura commented if the other companies did include that in their bids and we overlooked and went with the lowest price then we failed and we should own that but, if no one put that in their bids I’m concerned that we’re not getting the true package of what’s really happening with projects like this, and if we need to go back and look to see if this was included in other bids we messed up then shame on us. If not, especially the electric being shutoff then we need to go back on and say, there needs to be some shared cost here because that’s not a bid issue at that that point but a Project Management issue. The internet being hooked up and the conduit cost should have been included in the design work and if that was included in the other bids then we should investigate that. I’m not sure what the next step is whether our State’s Attorney gets involved or if we just say, we overlooked it then that’s on us. I think there are two different issues going on here.
Mr. Hartke stated I do know the internet connection conduit within the building is all included in the original contract so, that’s taken care of. This is just from the building out and where we need to bring it to on the pole. Regarding previous proposals, that’s something we can investigate but there’s nothing we can do from this point.
Mr. Fricilone commented we are not going to get anywhere beating up on Land Use at this point. I think they are overwhelmed on this, and it was way more than they anticipated. The second thing I want to say and remind everybody while I’m the biggest complainer that we need to see that sheet to show the dollars amounts, we are not in charge of this project, the Executive Office is. It’s the Executive’s Office to get this done. The only decision we’re deciding on is how we’re going to pay for what they’re coming forward with and that’s our only decision. This is a Finance decision at this point so, we can complain about not seeing a list of the changes faster, but this isn’t on us but on the Executive’s Office on how to deal with that. We just have control over the purse strings.
Mr. Moustis commented my recollection was we never asked them for an estimated cost for building the plant and we just decided on the design of a plant and what kind of plant would be best for Will County.
Mr. Hartke stated we do have 4 additional change orders that I mentioned. This is a very complicated project and it’s taken lots of time and the change orders proposed are things that we must have for this plant to be up and operating. I did mention the first 4 and change order 10 is part of the conduit disposal upgrade. Part of that is we learned that we must have double piping installed for the conduit system and we have to have secondary containment at the load out areas, that change order is $100,000.00. These change orders were pending, and we were told that they would be able to get those to us by the end of this week so, we were able to get them on July’s committee meeting. We were unable to get them on this committee meeting, but they will be included on the July’s Executive Committee Meeting. I’m just going over the other 3 that are not listed.
Mr. Brooks asked so you have all 8 of them on the Executive Committee?
Mr. Hartke responded yes. Another one 11 it says, temporary two trailer natural gas loading bay. We’re not going to have Nicor Gas to the plant in time to provide this supply gas that we need so, we’re going to have to install a temporary loading bay for that which will include the valving, connections, and gravel pad so, we can have that up and operating and in commissioning when they need it and that change order is $90,000.00. Change order 11 is a natural gas piping for the plant that change order is $100,000.00. The last change order is the sole source spare parts change order and that we need to have in place for the O&M Agreement and that’s $240,000.00.
Mr. Brooks asked so, all that goes to the Executive Committee to vote on?
Mr. Hartke responded those are the change orders that are going to be on the Executive Committee Agenda for Thursday, in July.
Ms. Coleman asked is there a total that you have?
Mr. Hartke answered the total change order for July is approximately $735,000.00.
Mr. Palmer commented the Finance Committee will be talking about the money, but the change orders historically have always gone to the Executive Committee that way everyone is involved in that discussion.
Mr. Hartke noted at this point this is the best information I have from SCS Engineering Energy that this is what these change orders is going to cost. For the rest of the memo report regarding the pipeline; the Western Contractors is the company installing the pipeline they’ve completed most of their underground drilling. We have a couple more of those to the east of Rt. 53 otherwise those are mostly completed. They have completed the breaking of bedrock that was located on our property and installed the pipeline in that area. As of June 28, they have about 15,000 ft. of pipeline installed approximately 14,000 ft. remaining to be installed. About 12,000 of that was open cut which is to finish from the railroad tracks to 53 then over to Riley Rd. When that is done, the pipelines will have been significantly completed at this point. At the second week of August we plan on having most of the pipeline installed and then just do the tie in at the RNG Plant and the interconnect. Then by the end of August we should have our demobilization of most part completed and that done. There is an interconnect valving station on the opposite end of the pipeline from the RNG Plant that hooks into the interstate pipeline and that’s all under construction right now and that should be done a couple weeks before the actual pipeline is completed. The O & M Agreement was approved in June most of the exhibits on that are finalized operations plan on that for signature and then I mentioned the RNG budget will be discussed at the Finance Committee today.
Mr. Schaben commented it would be helpful post construction to do a comprehensive review in totality and how the County does it bidding considering what happened.
Mr. Moustis asked Mrs. Tatroe can the County Board establish process for the Executive’s Office as a matter of policy?
Mrs. Tatroe answered yes you can.
Mr. Moustis commented we should really consider doing that. I think it’s better communication; the County Executive’s Office no matter who’s there follows the same type of policy. We need to make that connection between the Board and the Executive Office for Capital Projects. I think if we do that, we wouldn’t have these types of issues.
Mr. Schaben responded we are in complete agreement with that.
Mr. Moustis asked Mrs. Tatroe would that be a purchasing policy or a separate policy?
Mrs. Tatroe stated you can do it either way. You can have a separate section on constructions projects and indicate this is how this should go but if you want a broader more general policy about hiring a consultant or anything like that you can do a broader policy.
Mr. Moustis stated we should do is do a broader policy because currently the Executive’s Office only has the purchasing policy to give any kind of guidance. I don’t think these types of projects with getting consultants is necessarily addressed in the purchasing policy so I think that should be a separate policy
2. Morgue Project Update/Financial Summary
(Dave Tkac)
Mr. Tkac gave update on the morgue project. First and foremost, we will have the control estimate on the project on July 7. As you all know bid package #1 and bid package #2 were awarded. Bid package #3 will be awarded on the 14th that’s why I began my summary of the matching of the control estimate in advance of the bid opening day. I also wanted to mention to date we only spent dollars in the realm of professional services those dollars totaling $310,796.00 for Wright & Company for design services and for Leopardo the construction manager for preconstruction services $58,422.00 for a total of $369,218.00 spent to date on the project in total. We have a scheduled start date for the project of August 10, which is mobilization. We want to get together with DOT and the Sheriff’s dept. to make sure everyone’s on the same page and will understand how the site will be situated. How the construction traffic will have access to the project site. We’re looking for a completion date of May 17, 2023.
Ms. Traynere asked if we are we having a groundbreaking?
Mr. Tkac answered tentative scheduled for after Labor Day; details forthcoming. Ms. Berkowicz asked has furnishing and equipment been secured?
Mr. Tkac responded that is happening now and the estimated cost for three autopsy suites/lab the cost is $1.3 million dollars. That is one of the bids that is opened on the 14th. The coroner and her top people have been intricately involved with the design process from day one. We believe we have a facility that will work for them.
3. Status of Former Courthouse, 14 W. Jefferson St.
(Dave Tkac)
Mr. Tkac stated we are looking for a bid opening date of August 1, for asbestos removal. We hope to get the bid out on the street next week so, that we can open the bids no later than the end of the month. That is as far as we can go with the abatement process.
Mr. Schaben commented instead of amending existing contracts, we’re probably going to have to do an RFP. On the low end we’re looking at $150,000.00 up to the high end of $200,000.00. On just putting together the bid documents and releases those bid documents. The reason I’m informing the bodies is because we have to identify funds available to do that cost but also the time to do the RFP process as well. We have some informal quotes and that’s the range.
Mr. Ventura commented I’m assuming we demo’d buildings in the County before and what you’re saying is you don’t think that’s an appropriate contract or bid that we used in the past to upgrade to this location?
Mr. Schaben responded it’s not that it’s not appropriate but because of the scope of the work I think there are a lot of interested parties out there that want to bid on that type of work opposed to us just giving an existing contract.
Ms. Ventura stated in the past we always used a company to write the RFP for demolition, the County itself has not written it. If we have existing bid documents from the last demo that we did that’s standard why we would use a company to write an RFP for demo.
Mr. Tkac responded specific to this project is because it far more complicated than any of the other buildings we demolished in the past.
Ms. Ventura commented this last month we talked about the ability to open RFP for what to do with the land after or instead of. What I would like to see in the RFP go out and if you have interest in saving this building here’s your final chance to put your thoughts in. I don’t know if you need a company to do this type of RFP. This is a time in my opinion to go out for bid for everything that could be possible.
Mr. Schaben commented there is a process for knocking down a building. I put this on the agenda today because the County did this Master Plan in 2010 and they updated it in 2018. Some Board Members got a presentation of it if you were around at that time. That Master Plan included an analysis of what the future needs of space was for staff in the Countywide official offices, and they looked at several options in that old courthouse site. At that time it was proposed to do a consolidated building and house all the County services for that. I urge you all to read the documents on that. If that is still a desire of the County to head in that direction that will take us a lot of planning to get to that point. What we are looking for is direction whether it is to go out for a bid for future use that site might be or does the County want to stick with the current path, which was laid out in the Master Plan. We need to start having that planning process now because the building is going to take some time to demolish but then what comes next? We want some formal direction from the Board.
Ms. Traynere commented a couple of my constituents wanted me to address apparently when the original courthouse was torn down, they have a footprint of Greg’s blocks wherever in the ground that shows where that courthouse was, and they wanted you to be mindful that not be disturbed and they also wanted a footprint for the existing courthouse should it end up being torn down.
Mr. Fricilone commented about the revenue stream for this and the cost. The Army Corp of Engineers looks at the knocking down of buildings as a training for Army Corp. I think we should contact them right now before we start spending money on a bid package and find out if there is any interest from them to get involved in this. Even if we must pay them something let’s see where this might go.
Mr. Moustis commented, I think we need to move forward with demolition. I think the Board should give direction on the RFP. What’s on the agenda is a loan for the RNG Plant, Mrs. Tatroe if we want to expand that loan to include other capital projects, can we change the amount?
Ms. Tatroe answered I would have to look at that. I’m inclined to say, no, but let me look to see what’s on the agenda.
Ms. Coleman asked what is our purpose once we demolish it? People don’t come downtown Joliet to do anything. We need something for people to see. I’m all for working with the state legislation, City of Joliet, for all of us to go in and decide what should go in this space.
Mr. Schaben responded the direction that we have currently is to go out and demo it but if the Board wants to go in a different direction I don’t know if these things should happen simultaneously.
Ms. Berkowicz asked how is the RFP cost determined?
Mr. Tkac responded they did a walkthrough of the building and they saw how the building was constructed and the parameters of demolishing the building. We got back two estimates that came back from $150,000.00 to $200,000.00.
Ms. Tatroe responded to there is no legal impediment putting 2 bid packages out at the same time, I think the concern is when some of the members have at least indicated or concern for demolition. The other concern that they have is what exactly are you going to ask for in the alternative. I think that is a good question that you want to further refine. I think there are some processes I need to do some research because I have not been involved in them. I don’t think there is an impediment to doing both if the use is for public use.
Mr. Moustis commented the vision is the City of Joliet responsibility and not the County.
Mr. Palmer stated to give some clarity, in 2019 the previous Board passed a resolution to demo. There has been no action to rescind that so I think the direction of the Board to the Executive Branch was to demo the building. If we want to change that it requires a resolution to do that and I’m not sure of the support to do that. I’m sure we can figure out a way to publicly have everyone express their opinion and move forward. Without an action to change the direction of the Board the action has been demo the building and move forward and the next step to Ms. Coleman’s point we can concurrently be talking about what’s happening there or what could happen there after demolition.
Ms. Ventura asked Mrs. Tatroe can we just do that part of the RFP to not undermine the demo but what the next steps because we’ve been talking about what we’re going to do for 2 years and still haven’t moved forward so, why can’t we do that?
Mrs. Tatroe responded you must tell the vendor what you are looking for. When you’re putting the RFP out for what you are going to do with it you need to be able to tell the potential vendors what it is they’re bidding on. Can you describe what the project is? I think you must have some idea you have to give them some direction. We want an empty space; we want a park. How do they know what it is you want?
Mr. Moustis commented the Board has the discussion’ the Board holds public hearings; the Board takes in public input. It’s not done by RFP or RFQ. The Board decides and put their ideas forward that’s how the process works. RFP discourages people from coming forward.
Mr. Palmer stated in January of this year we passed a resolution authorizing additional work regarding the demolition abatement and site restoration so this part has authorized a step after the 2019 Resolution. This County Board is on record as supporting the next steps. I don’t think it was an anonymous vote, but it was overwhelming the majority I believe.
Mr. Brooks commented so, we already have direction from this board.
Mr. Schaben stated my intention with all this was to spark conversation on what comes next. The only document we have that has any sort of plans written down is that 2018/2019.
Mr. Palmer commented that’s not true. The Resolution, in January states the Will County Board hereby directs the Will County Executive’s Office to obtain pricing for abatement work, demolition of the building, and other related steps to make a final determination to declare the building surplus property with the future use of the property be determined at a later date. So, that gave direction in January of this year.
4. Discussion of 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan
(County Executive's Office)
Mr. Schaben stated we should have this plan ready for next month. We’ve been working with the budget process so; this should be ready for public consumption next month.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
VIII. PUBLIC COMMENT
Mr. Hollister stated on preservation options. This Courthouse should be preserved and turned into a destination instead of demolished. When the County Board first voted 3 ½ years ago in favor of demolition the County Board rested that decision of three different assumptions.
1. Demolition is only going to cost $1.5 to $2 million dollars.
2. There is no interest in redeveloping this building.
3. We are legally barred from working with a private sector. We now know that all three of those assumptions are not true. We know that demolition would cost taxpayers $6 to $10 million dollars. There is genuine interest in redevelopment. As our legal review shows, the County does have flexibility as recent decisions after the bargaining decisions in the 1960’s the County does have flexibility. This is all I have, and I look forward to further conversations.
IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
X. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XI. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to adjourn the meeting @ 12:15 PM
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Meta Mueller, Member SECONDER: Natalie Coleman, Member AYES: Brooks Jr., VanDuyne, Berkowicz, Coleman, Mueller, Traynere ABSENT: Fritz, Gould, Parker |
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