Will County Board Capital Improvements Committee met Aug. 2.
Here are the minutes provided by the committee:
I. CALL TO ORDER
II. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG
Mrs. Parker led the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.
III. ROLL CALL
Chair Herbert Brooks Jr. called the meeting to order at 10:02 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 | Late | |
| Donald Gould | Member | Present | |
| Meta Mueller | Member | Absent | |
| Annette Parker | Member | Present | |
| Jacqueline Traynere | Member | Late |
Present from the State's Attorney's Office: M. Tatroe
IV. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
V. OLD BUSINESS
1. RNG Facility Construction Update/Financial Summary
(Christina Snitko)
Mr. Kozak gave an update on the slide presentation. You can see how the process is moving along. Gas connection has been made and the interconnect is all that has to be done on that. Vessels being loaded with different medium. Large cooling unit showed up for the MCC room that giant air conditioner is just for the electrical room. Now you’re starting to see the finish work; the piping, well painting, patching, and all of the touch-up painting. The sound rated doors; these things are quite loud those compressors, so these doors are like vault doors. Pipe testing and getting the humidity out of there. The ComEd switch over occurred yesterday so, we got power back up and running.
Mrs. Traynere asked on days like today and ComEd says, reduce your electrical usage are we protected from that scenario?
Ms. Snitko replied we should be protected.
Ms. Fritz asked you said the sides is nearing completion so when do you think it’s going to be complete?
Mr. Kozak replied the mechanical completion then it rolls into SCS commissioning process which is starting to get scheduled. I’m thinking mid-August it’s going to start rolling out.
Ms. Snitko commented I don’t want to give an actual date, but I know that within the next couple weeks SCS is planning their vendors because they are vendors that have to come out and test every specific equipment. It takes a lot of coordination to get everybody out there but it’s starting very soon. It also depends on commissioning and testing so if they do find something faulty with the equipment it might take longer so, I can’t give you an end date but it’s commissioning starting. As Mr. Kozak mentioned we did the electrical switch over. The other thing we’re working with Harbour and SCS is supplying natural gas to the plant, so we are working with Nicor, and we granted them easement rights, so they are designing plans and drawings in order to run the pipeline through an existing easement that we have but it’s not going to be ready in time for us to start up. We’re working with an alternative fuel supply vendor to transport and provide natural gas for a couple months once Nicor taps in. We did put out an RFP for that. We did not receive any bids. So, based on the purchasing ordinance as well as the guidance from the State’s Attorney’s Office we’re going to be doing an emergency procurement process because it’s crucial to get that started or else the plant will not run. We’re also looking for a solid and liquid waste removal contractor for the gas condensate. Also, we did put out an RFP and we didn’t receive any bids, so we are working with SCS engineers to make sure we have an alternative fuel option for the time being once we get fully operational. So, we need someone that can haul the gas condensate depending on whether it’s hazardous waste or non-hazardous waste.
Mr. Brooks asked is that two separate companies hazardous waste vs nonhazardous waste to handle that?
Mr. Hartke replied it depends on the company and what they are capable of doing. Our original RFP was for nonhazardous gas condensate, and we got no responses at all. We’re working with our consulting firms to secure gas condensate hauler for nonhazardous waste. Trying to get quotes that will also have to go through the emergency procurement process to get that secured. We do plan on having a leadership meeting at some point regarding both of those items. We’re trying to get them both lined up so we’re not wasting people’s time. Mr. Brooks asked where do they take hazardous waste?
Mr. Hartke replied well it depends on the type of hazardous waste . Is it a liquid or a solid? Ideally people will treat, and the gas condensate would go to a treatment facility and then hopefully they can treat it to a point where it can be emptied into waste water treatment plant and then it would be cleaned up further. Typically, something like that would have to go through a lot of chemical treatment before it can be released and then your solids it depends it could be solidified more, brought to a hazardous landfill which there are a very few of those in the country or it could be incinerated depending on what it is.
Mr. Moustis asked what happens if you can’t find someone. Do we start storing it on site? If, you think that’s going to be the case what’s the cost for constructing that because we have no bidders. No one has an interest.
Mr. Hartke replied we have identified an interested hauler and have received 1 quote and waiting for 2 more quotes preferable from other haulers in the area. The biggest challenge we’re coming across is the shortage of truck drivers. So, it’s a little more difficult trying to secure an agreement with them but we are getting closer to securing 1 of them. What we’re trying to do is get that price down to make it more economical but we’re not sure we’re going to make that happen. The problem is when they know they’re the only 1, 2, or 3 players in the area it gets more difficult to be competitive.
Mr. Moustis asked what is the capacity to be able to store onsite?
Mr. Hartke replied we do have two 18,000 gallons tanks to store gas condensate. We have 36,000 gallons of storage. Obviously, we don’t ever want that to get up to about 28,000 gallons. So, we do have the capacity for condensate. As far as other storage there’s not a lot of space built into the site for storing hazardous waste. We would have to readjust our permit. We do have a permit right now for hazardous waste. A number of consultants have helped us working with that. We do need that to ship any hazardous waste offsite.
Mr. Fricilone asked I think we realize that we should have talked to some other people that were doing these things more, early on. Is anybody talking to us about us building this and their thinking of building one? Are we getting any inquiries from anywhere around the country?
Mr. Hartke replied we have not. We talked to Dane County ourselves in Wisconsin.
Mr. Fricilone stated but they built theirs before ours, but no one is calling us to find out.
Ms. Snitko stated I’m going to continue with the RNG pipeline update. We have about 25,000 ft. of pipeline installed. Currently as of last week we have less than a mile left to install for full completion of the pipeline. Unfortunately, I do have some bad news but I’m going to be transparent about it. We have hit bedrock. We’ve hit more bedrock than the soil borings that we have conducted shown and because of that I am going to be bringing forth a change order to the Executive Committee. I just want everyone to be braced for it. This is for the drilling, the open cuts, and the removal of the bedrock as we’re constructing the pipeline. Also, our pipeline contractors are starting to work with SCS and Harbour in order to tap in the remaining portion of the pipeline to the RNG plants.
Mrs. Traynere asked can we make any money off the bedrock? What’s the deal with this stuff?
Mr. Hartke replied it was hauled off by the contractor but there was a 1.5 ft. of bedrock that they had to remove through open cut and then the directional boring underground, under railroads, under streets, under wetlands, under parks they have to go as deep as 30 ft. deep in some cases. When they’re going that deep, they were hitting bedrock and quite a few of those directional boring so, that does increase the cost. There were test holes that were dug initially but we’re restricted from accessing a lot of these properties earlier on so we could only test on limited areas. The good thing is the interconnect which we thought was going to hit bedrock did not hit any.
Mr. Brooks asked Ms. Snitko is the expense for it going to the Executive this week?
Ms. Snitko replied yes. I have it on the agenda I just have to submit the supporting documents for this change order it’s roughly going to be $3.9 million.
Mr. Moustis asked in regard to the pipeline. I was very surprised when you said you were going 30 ft. deep when all the pipelines around the world are going 4 ft. max. Why are we going 30 ft.? I’m not surprised that you are hitting bedrock. I’m not aware of any pipeline in this county that goes down 30 ft. no matter what it passes through. Are we at a different standard than other pipelines?
Mr. Hartke replied it’s the directional boring and I’m not an engineer to fully understand that process but it’s in the directional boring that they have to go certain depths. Under the railroads they had certain requirements we had to be a certain depth underneath the rail line and that was our deepest directional boring we had to do. I don’t know the other depths. Most of them were like 8 to 12 ft. directional boring. I don’t have that in front of me; I can give that to you if you want it.
Ms. Snitko replied to answer your question the portion that we hit of the bedrock was located on IDNR property. At the time we had very restricted access in terms of how many soil borings we could do. Getting to their sites they weren’t very lenient with us getting there. Unfortunately, the distance between one soil boring to another included that distance of bedrock that we hit. I think tentatively we’re scheduled to complete the pipeline the first week of September. It kind of depends on if there is no issues with tapping in for the RNG plant. For the RNG interconnect the meter building has been received and installed. The tank has been received and the concrete pad has been poured. We have the filtered trimmed piping and the electrical hookup and the last remaining construction items that are about to be complete. I think the tentative completion date was the end of August, but Midwestern Gas Transmission has some electrical issues that they needed to work out with ComEd so, that pushed their schedule back a little bit. I think now or by next week they should be done. The O&M agreements even though the Board approved the O&M agreement in June of 2022, we’re still working through the remaining exhibits as well as operating plan with SCS. They are still drafting it and we are pushing them to provide that because we are getting very close to timing, but once we have all those documents then we can fully execute and complete that agreement. I also have attached to the agenda the RNG budget. I know there are concerns about this change order, but I do want to reassure you that we did include this in the $16 million dollar amount that was approved. We did anticipate this change order coming through as soon as we found out about the bedrock.
Mrs. Traynere commented if you look at the top line on the right-hand side the very top the $60,453 million our all in cost at the moment including the change?
Ms. Snitko replied I would caution using the verbatim all in. As of today, that’s kind of where were standing, yes.
Mrs. Traynere asked with the $3.9. That’s what I want to make sure of.
Ms. Snitko stated within this budget we hit a little more bedrock from the estimate that was given to us from Midwestern Contractors. At the time it was $3.1 million so there is an additional $800,000.00 that isn’t included in this. When we passed the budget at the time of knowing when we brought this forward last month, we anticipated $3.1 million. There was some additional cost that were added on to this change order so, it’s making it $3.9 million. So, there’s an additional $800,000.00 that’s not included in this updated total, but we are keeping track of it.
Mr. Brooks stated $61.2 million as of today.
Ms. Snitko replied yes.
Mrs. Traynere asked was our initial estimate $40 million?
Ms. Snitko replied the plant was only $38.2 million so, $39 million. That’s not including the pipeline and not including the interconnect. I also want to let the Board know no pipeline contractor is going to do a guaranteed maximum price because of these issues. We didn’t anticipate the bedrock; we didn’t anticipate changing the pipeline route. We had trouble with easement and getting those secured. We also had problems with the COVID pandemic. Steel costs went up, materials, labor went up and we’re having shortages of workers. Despite all these challenges I feel we did a really good job making everything come together. I know it’s a lot of money but we’re going to complete this.
Mrs. Traynere stated Ms. Snitko I’m not really criticizing in that respect it’s just that we don’t have a machine in the back room that prints money and that’s the frustration with this because if we continue to experience these costs then other things must be cut. We understand that we are too far into this to not finish it. We get that it’s not your fault.
Mr. Moustis commented this has been a frustrating project and the cost from where we thought we were going to be which was about $40 million dollars. Certainly, when we look we are $22 million dollar over that it gets pretty frustrating. I will say originally, we thought we could find a pipeline company to build the pipeline. The reason I’m mentioning that is I guess that wasn’t going to work because never was it presented to us initially that we were going to build this pipeline. Never. Initially. Having said that I guess the good thing about it is it will bring down our operational cost because we’re not paying a pipeline company to move our gas. So, there would be a return on our investment even though it is a lot more than we thought but if you want to look long-term it will bring our operational cost down.
Ms. Snitko responded to this whole committee I can’t speak to what was presented and said before I inherited this project and I want to run it to completion. We did in the very beginning explore options whether Nicor could they build the RNG pipeline and at the time we explored this in 2019 did not have the capacity to take the gas. I know in the past year they can take the gas but now that we have a contractor that has built a pipeline, it’s ours. The good news is Will County owns the pipeline so, it ours. We just have to make sure we keep up with maintenance checks but once it’s done it’s done.
Mr. Fricilone commented I just think the numbers are the numbers. To Mrs. Traynere’s point we have to get this to Finance because they have to know we’re okay taking money out of reserves, if more money has to come out. That must be allocated, and we have to know what it is and where we are at, so we see a timetable. So, if we’re taking $20 million are we anticipating putting $4 million back a year, $10 million back? We really need to put that on paper so, as we change members this stuff doesn’t get lost in the mush.
Mr. Brooks stated Ms. Snitko I think you have given a very good explanation with building a facility like this with a lot of unforeseen elements that has arisen but I think the committee also raised some very good concerns as well.
2. Morgue Project Update/Financial Summary (Dave Tkac)
Mr. Tkac gave an update on the morgue project. I want to give you all a brief summary where we came from last fall to where we currently are. Last summer exactly a year ago this committee and Will County approved the start of this project and its initial budget during it’s August meeting. Since then, we began the design process in earnest together with the construction manager, the architect, and the end user. Together we’ve also worked very hard to economize and to stay within the limitation presented within the initial project budget. However, when we got to the design development phase, and we were about 60% completion milestones it became clear that the project itself would not be able to be built for the initial budgeted amount of $7 million dollars. As such, the project came approach the Will County Board, the Capital Committee in November and requested some additional funds to the tune of about $2.4 million for a total revised budget of $9.4 million dollars. We have bids that are more than our overall project budget. We are currently in a position where we are unable to with all the bids in, all the dollars have been identified, the project has been designed with no frills. The Coroner and her staff have been instrumental in trying to keep costs under control. When bid package 3 opened on July 21, we were very disappointed, and we now stand at a point where we are overbudget by quite a bit of money. Unfortunately, that is not good news but it’s necessary to make this presentation and determine a path forward.
Mr. Brooks asked the bid that’s over, are we talking the $9.4 million? Mr. Tkac answered yes.
Mr. Brooks asked how much over Mr. Tkac?
Mr. Tkac replied $1.7 million dollars over.
Mr. Fricilone responded I’m getting confused now because that’s not what we were told in Leadership so, I have two things. We were told in Leadership that one of the bids was bad and we have to go back out for bid because they didn’t complete the paperwork and the number was $2.1 million so, it’s $1.7 million or is it $2.1?
Mr. Tkac asked can I address both. One of the things that I wanted to talk about as well and I think we can discuss it in as much detail as you want. A big component, the largest component of this project is the morgue equipment. We have 3 autopsy stations, a walk-in refrigeration unit which is both a freezer and refrigeration unit and it can hold up to as many as 50 decedents. The autopsy station and this refrigeration equipment is essentially manufactured and, in most cases, installed by one company called Morgue Tech. Everyone that is interested in doing a morgue in the United States procures their equipment and in most cases the installation is by Morgue Tech. In this case we worked with Morgue Tech very early on to obtain pricing for the equipment and installation. As the design and design development process moved forward our conversation with Morgue Tech continued and in each interval the pricing went up. Come bid day they submitted a bid, but it was rejected. It was a disqualified bid, and it was not read publicly at the bid opening. The reason being is it didn’t follow the procedure outlined by the purchasing director. As far as the amount; the amount that was discussed with Leadership is representative of the amount exceeding the shortfall so as to continue with the project if this committee and the Will County Board so decide to do so without having to come back again and also, in the hopes that we would not spend the entire amount.
Mr. Fricilone stated I had this conversation in Leadership. This isn’t our project this is the Executive’s project. If, it’s just about money unless you’re changing the building or doing some of the building this committee has nothing to do with this project. Now, you might ask for more money and Finance can say, no kill the project. I don’t know what the ask would be to this committee.
Mrs. Traynere stated it says on here that there’s a financial summary and there’s nothing on here.
Mr. Moustis commented there is none.
Mrs. Berkowicz asked why didn’t we just purchased this equipment and got that part of the project secured?
Mr. Tkac replied I think Mr. Zolecki can better answer but I will say, I think the equipment is custom made for each and every project.
Mr. Zokecki commented in terms of the equipment, identification. Ms. Summer’s and her team were great in the beginning to know exactly what they want, and we did get that equipment out early on. As to allow a process with help from Leopardo Contacting this and other manufacturers to see cost would be in terms of a prepurchase there is some finalization and specifics with the Deputy Coroner that we needed to go through the design but generally the equipment was there from a prepurchase and a storage standpoint. The issue with equipment is the actual installation of the equipment. Again, I have to point to the installation challenges with the vendor and a market that’s extremely limited throughout the county in terms of who produces and who provides this equipment to where they want to be the installer and I think that’s where a lot of the cost comes from. I mean we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential installation costs.
Mrs. Berkowicz asked at what point of time do we buy the equipment?
Mr. Zolecki replied I’m going to turn it over to Ms. McMillen, but the documents are complete, the design is done, the project is ready to go. The challenge is in the budget overage.
Ms. McMillen stated I wanted to address some of your questions. So, we did need to let the design team work through with Ms. Summers and her team the final designs so that the final specifications can be publicly bid. That’s part of your procurement requirements so we followed that process. They were at the point this was the earliest point of which we could go out and bid on the equipment and the installation 3 weeks prior to the due date of July 21, 2022. When the design was completed, and we went out for bid for that; however, during the course of the development of the design we were tracking with the vendors on what this pricing would be, and we increased our budget to accommodate that as we went through the process but when we got to the final point, they then increased it again. As Mr. Tkac mentioned one of the biggest issues, we have right now is labor shortage and material escalation. It is happening daily and weekly. There are a lot of challenges out there in the market and everyday it’s changing. It’s a situation where there aren’t a lot of different vendors to go to. Unfortunately, we are kind of stuck with and I feel like the team is spending an enormous amount of time trying to fine tune everything about this project brings it as tight as possible and Ms. Summer’s team has been great in doing that. A lot of things and we’re not going to go into details here because it would bore you but a tremendous amount of effort to manage these dollars as best we can. We’re just caught in a very difficult situation where the market has been very difficult to manage. We would not have been able to place this order a year ago because the scope a year ago was not defined like it is now. We did change a lot of features; we changed the square footage of the building over the course of the project too so, those are challenges. Regardless of the equipment the installation is still something people will not hold for that long of a period of time in this current market situation that we’re in. There are people who won’t hold their bids for even 30 days and they are choosing not to bid public projects because the private sector is keeping them busy enough.
Mr. Moustis commented I’m not going to advise or maybe I am advising the Executive Office how to move forward. This is what you’re presenting us is almost every project. Let me point out the last project we worked on the last one and it was the Public Safety Facility for the Sheriff Facility on Laraway Rd. That project was way more initially, and we hammered, and we have to go more towards budget now and we did that. Then we added the dispatch center and that brought it up, but we hammered on the costs because Capital Committee and the County Board leadership kind of had oversite of these projects and we get the information, and we would tell you early on that’s not going to work. You need to design more towards budget. When we did the courthouse, the judges wanted everything we had to tell them that’s not going to happen because here’s the budget. Figure out how you’re going to get this design to budget, and we will cut things off. For example, this project. Well, maybe we cut out 1 of the autopsy rooms and get by with 2. Certainly, you build a building you build an infrastructure that is needed for that equipment, but you don’t order the equipment. These are the types of things that the Executive’s Office must come back and say what needs to be cut off. I would expect to hear from the Executive’s Office with some areas that could be cut without affecting current operations and say, here’s how we can bring the cost down. That’s how this committee and the County Board manages projects. Now, if the Executive’s Office want to manage them differently and the only thing they want to do is say write us a bigger check and the taxpayer pay more. Well, you can present that but I’m not so sure that the Finance Committee isn’t going to push back on that. I’m just kind of laying it out the kind of methodology we used for years.
Mr. Brooks commented Mr. Tkac this is a discussion you need to have with the Executive’s Office. What you’re doing with us is updating because we don’t have the authorization to authorize any increase you may need. However, I do want to mention the attachments when you bring an update to us, we’re going to learn what expenses are going up and why, but we don’t have anything in writing to see that. In the future Mr. Tkac, I would ask even though we don’t have any authority over the Finance Committee or financial updates, but since you’re giving us one it would be good to see it and probably prior to the meeting.
3. Status of Former Courthouse, 14 W. Jefferson St. (Dave Tkac)
Mr. Tkac gave an update on the courthouse. I have one bit of news to report; we will have a bid opening for the full building abatement at 11:30 this morning that will occur in the Will County Board room.
Mr. Brooks commented that Ms. Coleman sent me an email maybe Mr. Palmer or Mr. Tkac can comment on this about her concerns.
Ms. Coleman asked what’s left in the building if anything and what’s the plan for its removal?
Mr. Tkac replied there are some items that remain in the building. Most of it is pretty picked over. There is some electronics that have been erased and scheduled for recycle. There are some modular furniture components that are old and have seen better days. Other things that were desirable and useful in other areas; other departments have repurposed. There are some remaining items some folks might want to take a second look at. What our plan is to take it to the archive building warehouse and store it and give folks one last shot to review it and see if they want to use it. For those remaining items that aren’t recycled it will become a part of demolition part of the scope.
Mr. Fricilone asked when is the bid going out to hire someone to develop the bid for demolition?
Mr. Tkac replied this week and out by next week.
4. Discussion of 5-Year Capital Improvement Plan (County Executive's Office)
Mr Schaben noted that this is a document that we’ve been working on going on several months now and the purpose of the document is to create a Capital Improvement Plan that would be updated on a year to year basis. Today’s purpose is just a discussion to introduce the document that we have today. Discuss it and come back next month and hopefully and come to a concrete document that will serve as a base for the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). I’m not going to read it all because it’s a lengthy document but I’m going to touch on some of the highlights. Fiscal year 2023 is the fiscal year of the development of Capital Improvement Plan. This is a playing tool to identify the capital needs of the County for the next 5 fiscal years to assist the Will County Board in making informed decisions regarding the allocation of revenue as well as determine if debt should be acquired to finance a project(s). A yearly review will be conducted by this committee to review the projects that were recommended during the prior years process in order to determine the accuracy of the cost data, current needs of the project, and relevant importance of relationships to other projects. We will receive and access projects that currently do not appear in the CIP. It’s not about just building the building its about the cost associated with the building after the building is built (what is our maintenance cost, janitorial cost) all these things should be incorporated into a project prior to approval. The process will be a general discussion; all Capital Improvement requests are evaluated by appropriate County staff prior to presenting to the County Board to aid and select in the based projects to include in the CIP. Evaluation is on a points system which requires department management to access and make recommendation for how the project in question satisfies each and several criteria. The process is designed to organize and present requests in a manner that management and the County Board have the information essential to effective decision making. The system is not intended to provide an absolute ranking of projects based solely on the numeric scores. (This entire document can be found as a handout given at the meeting attached to the typed minutes in the County Board Dept.). About 4 months ago I brought an application so you can see what the application looked like. I did that because we had already started the application process to align with our budget process. The results of those applications will be provided in next month’s document; it will be listed out in a spreadsheet along with a prioritization based on the ranking of the criteria and the application scores.
Mr. Schaben stated this committee will be the one who’s reviewing this document and approving a document to go before the full County Board. The work is done in committee and ultimately the document along with the budget would be approved by the full County Board.
Mr. Moustis commented that this document is not a 5-Year Plan. This document is a policy plan on how to proceed. Even though I can appreciate Mr. Schaben bringing something forward for us to look at, this is something that should totally be developed by the County Board. It’s a policy statement on how you’re going to go forward. You need to look at this a little differently this is maybe the framework. The Executive Committee should assign this and maybe the Executive Committee should take it up and have an Ad-Hoc Committee to work with the County Executive’s Office and develop a policy statement for Capital and not this blankly in my opinion. Understand the policy is the responsibility of County Board.
Mrs. Traynere commented this concept was brought up 4 to 6 months ago and if I’m looking at what it is you’re thinking to do. You’re planning on us making this decision I guess in Aug/Sept for the 2023 budget year and I’m with Mr. Moustis. These policies to look at and decide if we’re going to adopt them as is or make some changes and plan to use this for like the next cycle budget year, not this cycle. To me this seems like way too rushed.
Ms. Coleman commented I’m glad Mr. Moustis cleared this up. Seeing this plan from the Executive’s Office and saying we should read this and decide. I don’t know why it takes a year to determine policy. I just hope we can move this along.
Mr. Fricilone commented policy is developed by the County Board. It doesn’t come from the Executive and they say, vote on it. That’s what Mr. Moustis is talking about. This needs to be in Capital or a workshop in Capital and they need to decide on this. We do need to create some policies and I’ll tell you one policy we need is we can’t have discussion on things like this that are brought to us 5 minutes before we discuss it. We’ve talked about this 100 times Mr. Schaben. People want to read stuff. I know you guys worked on it and it takes a long time, but it always seems to be done 5 minutes before the meeting. I’m not asking any questions. I don’t know why anyone’s asking any questions. We haven’t gotten a chance to read it. But it’s a policy and policies must come out of here. It’s not developed by the Executive’s Office. All they do is deal with the policy that we create.
Ms. Fritz commented I also think whether this is a policy or approved by us as a tool to use. I don’t think we have to sign on to this policy. I don’t think we have to agree that this is policy. I think they’ve done a lot of work on this, and I think there’s potentially some good information that can be used but I don’t see why we have to say yes, this is policy.
Mr. Coleman stated what you said is we need a workshop. We don’t need to get this in a meeting. My whole point is can we schedule a workshop today or do we have to wait until next month? And who’s writing the policy from the Board? We should be trying to work together on this this year.
Ms. Ventura commented I’m not on Capital anymore, but I would like to be a part of that group because I have a lot of thoughts on this. I think this need to be done on a timely manner. This has to come from the County Board. This document needed to be attached at least 2 days ago. Ideally, sent to us a week ago so we could have read through it. That would have given us an appropriate amount of time. We’ve seen this time and time again getting stuff from the Executive’s Office last minute and it’s beginning to become a habit and less than the exception but here’s the praise. There’s a lot of good stuff I can already see on this document, it is good framework, but it really has to be the County that makes these decisions.
Mr. Van Duyne asked nothing against you Mr. Brooks but are you going to sit down on your parttime job and come up with this plan as the Chairman of the Capital & Improvements Committee? Where does this stuff come from? Do we have County Board staff qualified to bring this or does it come from the Legislative Committee chair to come up with all these ideas? I appreciate you guys doing all this work.
Mr. Moustis commented the County Board has been putting policies together for a long time. We’ve done it at committees, some outside resources whether it’s a consultant, but we have done it ourselves and have not relied on the Executive’s Office to tell us what policy should be. You can say this is a great framework and I can say, it’s not. Just glances at it and not getting into it that takes authority away from the County Board. Who are they reporting to the Executive? All the elected officials they rank them and give it to who? To us, the County Board or the County Executive’s Office. I’m always very concerned and have a concern about the authority of the County Board staying with the County Board. Every County Executive that I have served under is always trying to take some of that authority away. They chip away at it and chip away at it and sometimes they go down to Springfield get the legislation changed or whatever. I will tell you I don’t think this is necessarily good framework. When you say that in what way is it a good framework? I have a little bit of a different perspective and that is protecting the authority and the integrity of the County Board and not giving our duties and powers to another office holder. That’s what you have to be careful with. I don’t think this is great necessarily and I hope I’m getting through to someone.
Mr. Palmer commented I have been here in battle with Mr. Moustis over authority and things, but we worked together and got things done in the past and I think that is the intent of this effort. However, I take a little bit of concern with some of the comments of Board members and other in that the Board staff is fulltime here too and we can help. The first time I saw this document was at 9:24 this morning when it was emailed to us. I’m not trying to pick a fight here I’m just stating a fact this was discussed in January and there was a calendar; this would have been a good template I think because this calendar that was laid out in January my understanding and the comments, I reread the minutes and I encourage you all to do that was to involve the Board throughout this year. Had that happened I don’t think we would be having this conversation because you would have been involved in the development of this process and it’s messy and we would have to commit the time. Maybe, we don’t all want to commit that level of time but we’re on a 2-hour Capital Committee again so, we’re committing the time, but had we been involved throughout besides the Executive and the Board, I think we would feel differently about this process. When you get it at the end and Mr. Schaben said, it can change it can be modified and that’s the proposal before you. We can still change this stuff and had we been involved I think maybe it would be a different feeling of this is a joint effort rather than the decisions have kind of been made but it’s not a policy of the County until you fund it, it’s just an intent. So, constructively we can take where we’re at and if we want to get it done for this budget and in concept with spending and appropriating money then we got a lot of work to do in the next 3 or 4 months. County Board staff is here to help all of you, but we have to be included in practices.
Mrs. Traynere commented was our own staff involved in this and they weren’t.
I’m not too concerned about jamming this down anyone’s throat. It’s just too much especially at budget time.
Mr. Fricilone commented it doesn’t stop us from prioritizing some projects now, we do that every year in the budget. We haven’t had that point system and all that, but we still are going to put in projects that we can afford, but we still prioritize projects.
Mr. Brooks commented in order for this to stay on our agenda we have to have it up for discussion whether or not we’re going to have an Ad-Hoc and everything that everyone said around here they’re right. I think for us to get to a 5-Year Plan that leads to discussion our staff and this committee as well as Finance Committee would have to be involved.
Mr. Schaben stated I’ve given you the framework and you can take it with how you want it. I am happy to send over all the documents, spreadsheets, everything that’s fine.
VI. OTHER OLD BUSINESS
VII. NEW BUSINESS
VIII. PUBLIC COMMENT
IX. ANNOUNCEMENTS/REPORTS BY CHAIR
X. EXECUTIVE SESSION
XI. ADJOURNMENT
1. Motion to adjourn meeting @ 11:51 a.m.
| RESULT: APPROVED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Natalie Coleman, Member SECONDER: Annette Parker, Member AYES: Brooks Jr., VanDuyne, Berkowicz, Coleman, Fritz, Gould, Parker, Traynere ABSENT: Mueller |
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