St. Charles Government Services Committee met Monday, Jan. 23.
Here are the minutes as provided by St. Charles:
MINUTES
CITY OF ST. CHARLES, IL
GOVERNMENT SERVICES COMMITTEE MEETING
Members Present:
Members Absent:
Others Present:
MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2017, 7:00 P.M.
Chairman Turner, Aldr. Stellato, Aldr. Silkaitis, Aldr. Payleitner, Aldr. Lemke, Aldr. Krieger, Aldr. Gaugel, Aldr. Bessner, Aldr. Lewis
Aldr. Bancroft
Raymond Rogina, Mayor; Mark Koenen, City Administrator; Peter Suhr, Director of Public Works; Chris Adesso, Asst. Director of Public Works - Operations; Karen Young, Asst. Director of Public Works — Engineering; AJ Reineking, Public Works Manager; Tom Bruhl, Electric Services Manager; Tim Wilson, Environmental Services Manager; James Keegan, Police Chief; Joseph Schelstreet, Fire Chief; Chris Minick, Director of Finance
1. Meeting called to order at 7:00 p.m.
2. Roll Cal
3.b.
K. Dobbs:
Stellato: Present Silkaitis: Present Payleitner: Present
Lemke: Present Turner: Present Bancroft: Absent Krieger: Present Gaugel: Present
Bessner: Present Lewis: Present
Electric Reliability Report - Information only.
Active River Project Update - Information only.
Government Services Committee January 23, 2017 Page 2
4.a. Presentation of 7th Avenue Creek Project Update.
Karen Young presented. I am here tonight to present a high level overview of the 7th Avenue Creek project and answer any questions you may have. I am joined tonight by Ajay Jain and Scott Marquardt of HR Green who are available to answer any technical questions that you may have tonight.
Power point presentation by Karen Young.
Aldr. Stellato: Great job, very comprehensive and I appreciate your hard work.
Aldr. Silkaitis: What is the expected time frame from start to finish?
Mrs. Young: That is up to City Council and how you would like to proceed taking into consideration our budgetary needs.
Aldr. Silkaitis: Are you applying for grants or do we need to do more before we can apply?
Mrs. Young: We did apply for Riverboat Funding in the amount of $60,000 to complete the Watershed Plan last year. The completion of the Watershed Plan was a key element for us to be able to apply for other grants, so we will go after whatever we can.
Aldr. Payleitner: Very comprehensive; nice job. I like the big picture. I’ve shared before my funding concerns and I look forward to that conversation. You have showed us that the creek comes up from Tyler, what comes from the north?
Mrs. Young: That is the tributary.
Aldr. Payleitner: As we start working with the creek to the south, it won’t affect that, will it?
Mrs. Young: No, it shouldn’t affect it, but we will continue to monitor it.
Aldr. Lemke: I like the idea that we blended the two concepts. One thing that struck me odd is on 7th Avenue by the Public Works Facility. Is there already a diversion to bring the creek along the Public Works property on the west side of 7th Avenue in lieu of the curve on the east side? Are there two culverts under 7th ?
Mrs. Young: In Reach 8 there are dual culverts that come across 7th Avenue currently. That is the main channel that should we have 100 year event, the water from the creek basically overflows the secondary area.
Aldr. Lemke: Is there any opportunity for detention other than having the creek meander in the area of Reach 1? If that were done first, it could reduce the impact of the area where the creeks comes together.
Mrs. Young: One of the challenges in Reach 1 is that while in the end it will provide more detention of water in that area, the problem right now is that its retaining water so if we open that up, we will actually flood downstream. We talked about in our previous meeting the funnel affect and how we have to be careful what we open up stream. The phasing in which we lay this project out is very methodical to protect different areas.
Aldr. Krieger: I support the plan completely. One question, for long stretches of time there won’t be any water in the creek. Without any rain or snow, all of sudden it will be 5-7 inches deep. Where does that water come from?
Mrs. Young: There are some industrial permits that allow for the release of water.
Aldr. Gaugel: Great job; you have done a tremendous amount of work along with HR Green and I’m with Aldr. Krieger. I would encourage my fellow Council members to be aggressive. When we talked previously, we talked about 5-8 years being aggressive. I’m not saying to be hasty, but this has been a problem for a long time. I would love to see us move forward and keep pursuing the grants.
Aldr. Bessner: I like the plan as well; if you did an engineering only concept, does that have a visual impact? Meaning, how it looks to the surrounding environment?
Mrs. Young: Yes, an engineering solution often involves two things, one of them being culvert replacement. With the incorporation of a greenway, it provides natural areas for water to stand and store. In an engineered only solution, the channel would remain the same.
Aldr. Lewis: Thank you, Karen; very nice presentation. I also like the plan. I think it’s one of our older neighborhoods and I can see where this would compliment the homes that would be left and hopefully bring young families back into this area.
Chairman Turner: I would like to move forward as quickly as possible. I’m sure most of us agree your first step needs to be land acquisition. Did you say that ten people have already contacted the City about purchasing their property?
Mrs. Young: Yes, last year we had received an influx of requests from residents to purchase their property. Ten of the 13 structures we have identified have approached the City for acquisition.
Aldr. Payleitner: I agree that we need to get this going, but I also think we need to be thoughtful on how we are paying for this. I made that very clear when we were randomly buying properties before.
Government Services Committee January 23, 2017 Page 4
Chairman Turner: So we have 10 people right now who, if we had the money, would sell us their property. Are we going to purchase the properties as the phase comes along?
Mrs. Young: Reach 5 is at the epicenter of the project and that is where the majority of the land acquisition is set to take place.
Aldr. Payleitner: Reach 5 is the most expensive of them too. I want to make sure our approach to funding is agreed upon out of the gate.
Mrs. Young: I understand; we still need to have conversations regarding funding.
Aldr. Payleitner: There is a portion of this I think qualifies as an SSA. It is a big project that benefits the City as a whole, but specifically I think it benefits that area, no more than the other SSA’s throughout our City. I would like to make sure that is investigated.
Aldr. Lemke: Maybe there are two SSA’s; one around the confluence and the other around Tyler.
No further discussion.
4.b. Recommendation to approve Architectural Agreement with FGM for Police Facility Project.
Peter Suhr presented. As you know, the City first hired FGM Architects in January 2015 based on their successful response to our RFQ and interview process. At that time, City staff had already prepared Council for the conditions of the existing police facility, recognizing there were major improvements needed. Over the past couple of years, FGM has helped us evaluate the existing conditions of the current police facility and they have prepared a space needs assessment and they have created several master plan solutions for cost estimates.
It is time to move from the planning stage to what we consider basic services, especially based on the conversation we had earlier this evening. Basic architectural services includes a schematic design, design development, construction documents, bidding and negotiations, construction and additional services which have all been outlined in a standard American Institute of Architecture (AIA) document which has been reviewed by our legal counsel and has been included in our packet. In other words, we are requesting to continue to retain FGM Architects to design our new police facility, prepare bid documents and specifications and help us to hire a constructor as well as oversee the construction and ultimately commission the new facility for use by our Police Department and City. FGM Architects was the most qualified firm of seven total proposers. They have performed exceptionally over the last few years. They can seamlessly transition the next phases of this project. They still have the longest and broadest track record of successfully completed Illinois police stations, and we have negotiated a fair and reasonable fee for their professional services.
Staff recommends awarding the contract for professional architectural services for the police facility to FGM Architects. FGM is represented this evening by Don Dzarnowski and Ray Lee if you have any questions of them, me or Chief Keegan.
Chairman Turner: This contract won’t begin until we select a site?
Mr. Suhr: That’s correct.
Aldr. Payleitner: The bottom line is whatever we decide to do, their fee is 8% of the project?
Mr. Suhr: It’s 8% of the construction costs.
Aldr. Gaugel: What is our insurance that we can say we are over budget?
Mr. Suhr: We are going to pay FGM for the services they provide. If we get to a point in time where the project is cancelled or diverted, we are only obligated to pay them for services they have rendered. Another option that is spelled out in the AIA Agreement is that at some point in time that hasn’t been defined yet, we can take the construction costs at that time and hold FGM to a firm fixed price. We can’t obviously do that now because it’s too early. We don’t have a site and we don’t have a design. But at some early stage in the process, we can come back to Council with a construction number and ask for a firm fixed fee at that time.
Aldr. Gaugel: That is my concern, so I personally would like to see that number as soon as it’s available.
Chairman Turner: Kristi, please call a roll.
K. Dobbs:
Stellato: Yes Silkaitis: Yes Payleitner: Yes Lemke: Yes Bancroft: Absent Krieger: No Gaugel: Yes Bessner: Yes Lewis: No
No further discussion.
Motioned by Aldr. Stellato, seconded by Aldr. Gaugel. Approved by voice vote. Motion carried
4.c. Recommendation to approve a Resolution Authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk of the City of St. Charles to Execute all Applicable Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Loan Documents.
Tim Wilson presented. This is a housekeeping item related to the EPA pre-loan application document. Last June, City Council approved an Ordinance to borrow funds from the Water Commission Control Program. As part of the pre-loan documents, the City is required to approve a Resolution authorizing the Mayor and City Clerk the ability to execute all applicable EPA loan documents.
No further discussion.
Motioned by Aldr. Stellato, seconded by Aldr. Bessner. Approved by voice vote. Motion carried
5.a. Recommendation to approve a Resolution and Use of Amplification Equipment for the 2017 St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Chief Keegan presented. As you will see in your packet, there is a cost formula that has been outlined; there was a slight increase from last year due to employment and equipment costs. Other than that, there are no substantial changes from the previous year.
Aldr. Payleitner: It says in the Executive Summary that we now charge an hourly productive rate, does that explain the increase?
Chief Keegan: Yes; as part of the Special Events process, we now go in greater detail of the hourly rate for the workers whether it is Public Works, Police or Fire, but also some of our equipment such as barricades, etc.
No further discussion.
Motioned by Aldr. Bessner, seconded by Aldr. Gaugel. Approved by voice vote. Motion carried
6. Executive Session.
None.
7. Additional items from Mayor, Council, Staff or Citizens.
Chairman Turner: How are we doing on salt, just in case it starts to get messy?
Mr. Suhr: The winter has been good for us; we have had a couple ice events, but compared to previous years we are in good shape.
Government Services Committee January 23, 2017 Page 7
Chairman Turner: Good. Tom, have we had any problems with the grid over this winter?
Mr. Bruhl: No.
Chairman Turner: Have you been able to get ahead on your maintenance with this weather? I see a lot of your trucks laying cable all over the place.
Mr. Bruhl: Yes, we are working on getting priority locations done before summer.
8. Adjournment from Government Services Committee Meeting.
Motion by Aldr. Stellato, seconded by Aldr. Bessner. No additional discussion. Approved unanimously by voice vote. Motion carried.
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