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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-09-18 Public Works and Property Vacation �Y SpUTH 8�,�0 > 1865 ., OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH N. FOWLER, CITY CLERK PUBLIC WORKS &PROPERTY VACATION APRIL 9, 2018 4:30 P.M. Committee Members Present: John Voorde, Jo M. Broden, Gavin Ferlic, Sharon L. McBride Committee Members Absent: None Other Council Present: Karen White, Tim Scott, Oliver Davis, Dr. David Varner, Regina Williams-Preston Other Council Absent: None Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Bianca Tirado, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: Mike Danch, Tim Scott, Karen White, James Mueller, Eric Horvath Agenda: Bill No. 19-18- Alley Vacation at 1221 E. Campeau Street Bill No. 21-18-Ordinance Establishing Responsible Bidding Practices and Submission Requirements on Public Works Proj ects Committee Chair John Voorde called to order the Public Works and Property Vacation Committee at 4:30 p.m. He introduced members of the Committee and proceeded to give the floor to the presenters. Bill No. 19-18- Alley Vacation at 1221 E: Campeau Street Mike Danch, Danch, Hamer & Associates with offices located at 1643 Commerce Drive, stated, We are just asking for an alley vacation for the alley between Arthur and Walsh. It is north running. The reason we are asking for it is because the petitioner owns the houses on both sides but when they open the door on the west of the alley, the door opens almost into the alley. It is gravel and they think that is a safety issue. The nearby east-west alley will allow access between Arthur and Walsh. Committee Chair Voorde asked, None of the Departments that have to sign off have a problem with the vacation? INTEGRITY1 SERVICE1 ACCESSIBILITY JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BIANCA L.TIRADo JOSEPH R MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTy/DMECTOR OF OPERATIONS DEPuTy1DDtECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1 227 W.Jefferson Blvd.I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.92211 f 574.235.9173 1 www.southbendin.gov ®CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Mr.Danch replied,No they do not. You should have received notification from the Board of Public Works and they give a favorable recommendation. Committee Chair Voorde then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. There were none. He then turned the floor back to the Committee for further comment or main motion. Committeemember Gavin Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 19-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Committteemember Sharon L. McBride seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four(4) ayes. Bill No. 21-18- Ordinance Establishing Responsible Bidding Practices and Submission Requirements on Public Works Projects Councilmember Tim Scott, 711 Forest Avenue, stated, My cosponsors on this were Jo M. Broden and Karen L. White. This was a team effort between the City, some of the Trades and the Chamber of Commerce to put together a Responsible Bidder Ordinance (RBO). For the Ordinance we will go through policy goals. Councilmember Scott referenced a presentation which is available in the City Clerk's Office. He continued, This has been adopted throughout the State of Indiana. The whole idea is to protect taxpayer dollars that are a part of public works. We have all heard the lowest bidder but what we want to see is the lowest responsible bidder. Part of our team was Administration including James Mueller and Eric Horvath. We want to make sure everything is fair and level. We had everything that is documented for tax payers. As we moved forward, one (1) of the biggest things we worked on with a lot of team effort was looking at the contractors and subcontractors that are small. We want to make sure they are exempt from this because this affects projects worth$150,000 and more. The conditions here do not apply to the small businesses trying to get contracts. The one (1) thing I really like about this too is the prequalification of bidders. A lot of people think this is going to be burdensome but they can prequalify by adding all your information and then the City has that on file. You are then just having to update that as you need. Certified Payroll is also important. We have had issues where there has been undocumented pay and we want to make sure we are getting the taxpaying dollars accounted for. There are penalties that are majority complaint driven, but this also allows the City to conduct an audit if need be. Again, the threshold is $150,000. Subcontractors will submit bids as well. The Certified Payroll will come through the Board of Public Works. This also affects apprenticeships. They don't have to be a part of a Union to get business with the City. Councilmember Karen White stated, There was an excellent level of communication throughout this process. We really started this process in 2017 and we had a number of conversations. The discussions were very rich and transparent with the goal to make sure there is the responsibility with bids of business in the City. This is to help ensure those doing work with the City will provide the highest quality of work. I think this is a step in the right direction and it sends a message. I hope the other Council Members are supportive as well. Committeemember Jo M. Broden stated, The thing I particularly like about this is certainly the collaboration that occurred through the process. I do think already we have a pretty robust expectation of our contractors already. This basically quantifies that in advance. It is very specific. It is consistent and most importantly it is verifiable. It levels the playing field for all. And frankly, the type of information that is asked for,for the most part,is something I do think the local taxpayer EXCELLENCE ( ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 If 574.235.91731 TM 574.235.5567 l www.southbendin.gov 2 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK should know. We get a good job by way of the skills embedded in this,the apprenticeship training, workforce development,jobs and payroll. Those are all important. Safety is also embedded in this as well. I think that is important. I think the last point I would like to make is that whenever there is fraud, whether is it locally or federal or state, in terms of wages, and that's not addressed appropriately, that does affect every taxpayer in our local government. I think the verification a part of this is reasonable. I'm happy with the process and this is a practical approach. Dr. James Mueller, Executive Director of the Department of Community Investment with offices on the 14ffi floor of the County-City Building, stated, It was great collaboration. There was a lot of dialogue. I will say that any detractors from this final work product were things we had long hours of dialogue on. Particularly, we wanted to find out how small businesses can still work. We had a meaningful compromise here where it is not just projects over $150,000. If it is a project over $150,000 and a subcontracting piece of that is under $150,000, they are exempt. This is different from the other RBOs in other communities so that was a meaningful compromise. We talked a lot about the workforce developments and they actually line up a lot with the State requirements for large contracts. So this isn't anything that earth shattering or different than what goes on across the State.Indianapolis and other major cities have this.Indianapolis is the fastest growing economy in the State so this certainly isn't going to hurt our economy. Committee Chair Voorde asked, How was the $150,000 threshold determined? Eric Horvath, Director of Public Works with offices on the 131` floor, replied, There are a couple requirements involved such as bidding requirements. When we were looking at this Ordinance,we wanted the responsible piece to have additional submission requirements to make sure we are ensuring we have responsible bidders. At the same time,we are trying to find the sweet spot so we didn't make it overly onerous on any of the contractors with all the paperwork they have to do that is mandatory. We didn't want to create any additional barriers for folks. In particular, some of the small businesses don't have the ability to do all the bonding requirements and other things. Putting additional requirements on top of that would have prevented us from having small businesses bid on our projects. I don't know if there is any magic to that threshold but we felt like we typically have projects under that and then we have a handful above that and it seemed like a good place to put it. Committee Chair Voorde stated,I'm sure a bill this took this long took into consideration the effect this might have on MBEs and WBEs. Mr.Horvath replied,Absolutely and those typically go hand in hand with the SBEs.The Diversity Utilization Board is reconvening and we are looking at ways to continue supporting those enterprises to increase their participation with the City. When you get new folks to the table who haven't been through the process before, it is a difficult process. To make it as simple as possible is our goal. This is part of it. Committee Chair Voorde asked, Is this certification level a local qualification or a State-wide qualification? Mr. Horvath replied, The prequalification in this Ordinance would be part of the City's process. It is basically so that they don't have to submit it. If you submit bids on five (5) different jobs over a year,some of this information will be the same information and rather than having them resubmit EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building I227W.Jefferson BvldI South Bend,Indiana 46601 p574.235.92211f574.235.9173ITTD574.235.55671www•southbendin.gov 3 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK it, components of this allow for them to not have to resubmit every year. They can prequalify and submit the first time, and then be good for the year. Of course there are some components that will always have to be submitted as part of a unique project. Councilmember Dr. David Varner stated, About a decade ago,the State redid the bidding process and it created three (3) classifications. I believe those were skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled. Does this, in anyway, introduce a new classification or will we still recognize the State classification? The point I'm trying to make is any time you add regulation, you add cost. It is difficult in my mind to say this will reduce costs. Some of the things that struck me, particularly in regards to MBEs and WBEs,I think the$150,000 is way too low.That is remodeling a bathroom in the County-City Building. If you are really truly interested in MBE and WBE participation, I think you have to let these contractors grow and grow without being burdened into some of these larger positions. Is there an intention that there will be new classification standards other than the States? That would be an enormous impact on how you classify someone as qualified or not qualified. Mr.Horvath replied,A couple years back we had what's called Common Construction Wage Skills and those are no longer allowed in the State of Indiana. That was the wage paid in accordance with the skill. This is not putting that back in. The only thing we are asking for here is Certified Payroll so if you have a laborer,they have to report what they're making and how many hours they worked to make sure they are meeting all the labor requirements. I don't think it will change anything on the skilled or unskilled. It won't require anything but the Certified Payroll. Councilmember Dr. Varner followed up, We really need clarification on that. If people are going to be legitimate or not legitimate because they adhere to a separate classification system and someone else is indifferent, I think we need to clarify that. The elephant in the room is that there are merit shops as opposed to organized shops which operate on a system that the State adopted. If this in one(1)way,shape or form requires people to conform to a different classification system, it could have an effect. Dr. Mueller stated, It is not that these requirements are overly burdensome. Before when we had the Common Construction Wage, Certified Payrolls were a natural part of doing business with the City. If you look at apprenticeships, once you get to a certain size, even if you're a small business, we would hope you would be doing these types of practices anyway. Councilmember Dr. Varner asked, Who makes the charge of misclassification of employees. We've heard that around here for the last seven(7) or eight(8)years? This sounds like a nice idea but I don't want anyone to be excluded if they don't want to conform to these new requirements. And when you increase responsibilities and regulations on businesses, you increase costs. That is almost without question. That is my point. I think this may impact these businesses. What I would like to see would be for us to be so successful that we don't really care who gets the job because everybody is busy. With the stuff going on at Notre Dame,it is a great time to be in the construction business. I remain concerned that as nicely packaged as this has been, it will lead to unintended and unexpected consequences. Dr. Mueller stated, That is something we can monitor and over time we will address those issues. EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 1227W Jefferson Bvld I South Bend,Indiana 466011 p 574.235.9221 l f574.235.9173 j TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 4 CITY OF SOUTH BEND I OFFICE OF THE CLERK Committee Chair Voorde then opened the floor to members of the public wishing to speak in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. Murray Miller, 23698 Western Avenue, stated, To address some of the things Councilmember Dr. Varner stated, first, that is part of the reason why it is a bona fide apprenticeship program through the Department of Labor. They regulate the apprenticeship program. Whether it is a merit shop or a union shop, they are bona fide through the Department of Labor and they control those classifications. The County Prosecutor has prosecuted many for misclassifying workers. It has happened and many other prosecutors are looking at that. Committeemember Ferlic made a motion to send Bill No. 21-18 to the full Council with a favorable recommendation. Councilmember McBride seconded this motion which carried by a voice vote of four (4) ayes. With no further business, Committee Chair Voorde adjourned the Public Works and Property Vacation Committee at 4:57 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, \jzec) John Voorde, Committee Chair EXCELLENCE I ACCOUNTABILITY I INNOVATION I INCLUSION I EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227W.Jefferson BvldI South Bend,Indiana 466011p574.235.9221if574.235.9173ITfD574.235.5567jwww.southbendin.gov 5 I