04082025 Board of Public Works Meeting Minutes

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AGENDA REVIEW SESSION APRIL 3, 2025 61 The Agenda Review Session of the Board of Public Works was convened at 10:30 a.m. on April 3, 2025, by Board President Elizabeth A. Maradik, Vice President Joseph Molnar, and Board Members Gary Gilot, Murray Miller, Breana Micou, and Board Attorney Michael Schmidt present. The Board of Public Works Clerk, Theresa Heffner, presented the Board with a proposed agenda of items presented by the public and by City Staff. Board members discussed the following item(s) from the agenda. OPENING OF BIDS Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Cynthia Simmons asked if there would be MWBE goals associated for item 3.A: 2025 Street and Sewer Material Bid and 3.B.: 2025 Asphalt Material Bid. President Maradik stated that these two (2) items are not projects, they are for materials. Attorney Schmidt stated that it would probably be deemed to not be commercially reasonable to subdivide like the hot mix. Mr. Miller noted that at one time, they added trucking into it the material bids. AWARD BIDS AND APPROVE CONTRACTS Mr. Gilot was present to ask about item 4.B.: 2025 or Newer All Wheel Drive Police Pursuit Utility Vehicles. He raised concerns about the impact of newly announced tariffs on the cost of Chrysler Dodge vehicles for the Police Department. He suggested delaying the award to assess the potential increase in costs and consider adding a clause to disclose tariff impacts before awarding contracts. He proposed that legal should think about the implications of the tariffs and whether a clause should be added to the contract requiring vendors to disclose the impact of tariffs on their bids before awarding the contract. VP Molnar noted that there isn’t a car company in the world that won’t be impacted. Attorney Schmidt discussed the possibility of suppliers increasing costs beyond their bids due to tariffs and whether tariffs could be grounds for declaring a force majeure event. They concluded that tariffs should not be considered a force majeure event. He added that the City experienced this during COVID with chemical supplies. What we found was that these suppliers were able to increase cost well beyond what they put on their bid. The City takes some risk and the supplier takes some risk, when you award a contract, we are supposed to be locking in a price. Mr. Gilot reiterated that since the announcement about tariffs was made yesterday, he wouldn’t mind delaying the award to give them time to answer on how the tariffs may affect the pricing. Director of Public Works Eric Horvath stated that it may be worse if they wait to award the contract. They should be subject to the price, but he thinks potentially they will see future bids being elevated. In the instance of the chemical supplies, they didn’t want to keep them to that price, but they said they would back out and then we wouldn’t have chemicals. They couldn’t get any other chemical suppliers, and they checked with everyone in the area. He concluded that he doesn’t think that in a week or a month they are going to have any certainty. At some point we will just have to move forward. Mr. Gilot asked if the Board would like to see a standard clause added to the awards while we are in this period of uncertainty. Attorney Schmidt advised that it is up to the Board on how they would like this to be handled. It is rare to have a vehicle purchase come through because they use quantity purchase agreements (QPAs) to make acquisitions. He advised the Board to think about a recommendation that can be voted on before Tuesday, then if the Board wants to pursue anything, they could prepare a resolution to formalize a response to uncertainties of the tariffs and what impacts might be on the public bids. CHANGE ORDERS Mr. Miller was present to ask for additional information regarding item 6.A.: Leeper Ave. Bridge Repairs Deck Replacement. He noted that there was not a lot of information in the file. Director Horvath advised that the work is complete, but there was money left in the contract and the path up to the bridge structure was in bad repair, so they are just repaving that and they had to do it in the spring.