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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRM 03-18-77March, 8, 1977 10,00 m. Presi:d'.ng Officer; 1, ROLL CALL 2. 3. SOUTH BEND REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION REGULAR MEETING 1200 County -City Building 217 West Jefferson Blvd. F, Jay Ni'mtz, President South Bend, IN 46601 Commissioners Mr. Present Mr. Mr. Mr. Legal Counsel Mr. Mr. News Media Mr. Mr. F. Jay Nimtz, President Donald A. Wiggins, Vice President A. Peter Donaldson, Secretary Lloyd E. Robinson, Sr., Member Kevin J. Butler George Patton Les Howard, WNDU Photographer Terry O'Reilly, WNDU Reporter Community - Mr. Keith Crighton D velopment Staff Mr. Ken Schaller L A Staff Mr. C. Wayne Brownell Mr. Marc Brammer Ms. Susan Ragland A,PROVAL OF MINUTES MINUTES OF 3 -4 -77 Or motion by Mr. Wiggins, seconded by Mr. Robinson, and carried, APPROVED the Minutes of the Regular meeting of March 4, 1977,were approved as mailed. A PROVAL OF CLAIMS CLAIMS APPROVED Or motion by Mr. Wiggins, seconded by Mr. Robinson, and carried, IN AMT. OF t e claims in the amount of $7,606.62 were approved as submitted $7,606.62 a d were allowed and ordered to be paid. List of claims approved this date is as follows: 3. AHPROVAL OF CLAIMS, Continued: PROJECT EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT, INDIANA R -66 Kevin J. Butler $ 770.32 S. M. Dix Associates 1,057.60 I liana & Michigan Electric Co. 7.23 M szynski Insurance Agency 1,555.50 0 fice Engineers, Inc. 201.00 Total $ 3,591.65 REIDEVELOPMENT DISTRICT CAPITAL FUND Kevin J. Butler $ 124.00 Total $ 124.00 REDEVELOPMENT REVOLVING FUND Payroll: 2 -26 -77 to 3 -11 -77 $ 2,996.93 Amoco Oil Company 75.45 Comet Car Wash 6.40 C edit Bureau of South Bend - Mishawaka 5.00 Dorothy Z. Deane 34.25 I diana Bell Telephone Co. 173.89 I.B.M. (Copier II) 304.92 P stmaster 10.98 Power Discount Drugs 32.40 S rand, Inca 45.51 South Bend Tribune 155.49 C Wayne Brownell 49.75 Total $ 3,890.97 GRAND TOTAL $ 7,606.62 4. COMMUNICATIONS Ti�ere being none this week, the Commission moved on to the next o der of business. 5. OLD BUSINESS a, First Series 1977 Project Notes. Check in the amount of 136,832.57 was mailed on March 14, 1977 to the Bankers Trust Company of New York City, marked to the attention of Mr. Robert Griffiths, Assistant Vice President of Corporate Trust Operations. The closing date is March 22, 1977. -2- FIRST SERIES 1977 PROJECT NOTES CHECK MAILED IN AMT. OF $136,832.57 5. OLp BUSINESS (Continued): a.l Continued Mr. Brownell: Of that amount, $71,000 was payment on the principal and interest was $65,832.57. I think that while this is old business, it is really a report of closing out the old business. I don't believe it requires any action. b. Request for Commission authorization to amend the Contract between the Department of Redevelopment and Dr. George A. Wing dated December 17, 1976 in order to change the con- sultation fee. Mr. Brownell: We have negotiated a change in the consulta- tion fee to $500.00 per month, effective February 1, 1977. Chair: Any questions or discussion? Mr. Wiggins: That was an adjustment to coincide with his (teaching duties)? Mr. Brownell: This is an adjustment to coincide with his university duties. Mr. Wiggins moved to approve this Addendum, Mr. Robinson seconded and the motion was carried. c. The right of way encroachment matter at the southwest corner of inco nway East and Monroe Street has been settled, and the document signed. The agreement with Amoco was reached in Detroit this week. Mr. Brownell: This was negotiated with the Standard Oil Division of the Amoco Oil Company. The document is still in Detroit. I talked to their attorney this morning before the meeting and either the attorney will bring it down when they come down to Goshen or Sturgis, or if neither Goshen or Sturgis is ready to complete the business, they may not be coming down and we might have to send somebody to get it. We did not want to have it mailed, because there is a year's work in this document. Chair: There is no action necessary on this report. d. A listing containing all Community Development contracts awarded by the Redevelopment Commission, as well as the change order accounting sheet pertaining to those awarded contracts, has been submitted to the Commission as requested at the Regular Meeting of March 4, 1977, by Kenneth J. Schaller, Project Director of the Bureau of Housing South. M911 CHANGE CONSULTA- TION FEE ON CONTRACT WITH DR. GEORGE A. WING AGREEMENT SIGNED WITH AMOCO RE ENCROACHMENT LISTING OF ALL C.D. CONTRACTS & C.O. ACCOUNTING SHEET 5. OLD BUSINESS (Continued) : 91 a (Continued) The Chair: It looks like a complete report. Mr. Brownell: I think there are sixty -five contracts l.is.ted and twenty -eight change orders. The Chair: I think the members of the Commission probably want to take this with them and digest this, until the next meeting. Mr. Wiggins: Yes, definitely. The Chair: We thank Mr. Schaller for this very complete report and we'll table this for the agenda of a future meeting. BUSINESS Request for Commission authorization to award the following con- tract, subject to legal counsel review and approval: SWCD2 /PR /CS -1/05 419 S. Olive St. $4,100.00 Slatile Roofing & Sheet Metal Co. Mr. Brownell: This was put in by itself because it was the only one under $5,000.00. There were three people who took out documents, but only one contractor bid. The Chair.asked if there were any questions or comments. Mr. Wiggins: There seems to be quite a bit of discrepancy be- tween labor and materials estimate, again, and the actual amount bid. I wonder if you would care to comment (Mr. Crighton)? Mr. Crighton: At our last Advisory Board meeting for the Southeast Project, we discussed at length the problem of our cost estimates. After discussing this with an architect who serves on this committee, a number of contractors who are in the housing rehabilitation business were also consulted. We have arrived at the conclusion that our cost estimate is not actually a cost estimate, it is actually a labor and materials estimate, i.e., the change on the bid tabulation sheet that you have in front of you. All we are estimating is the approximate amount of materials and labor that go into that house; we are not estimating any overhead, profit, ad- ministrative costs, bonding costs or insurance costs. Because of the variation in size of contractors who deal with us, we -4- APPROVAL OF CONTRACT SWCD2 /PR/ CS -1/05 6. NEW BUSINESS (Continued) a.l Continued: Mr. Crighton: (Continued) have no real ability to make an exact cost estimate. It is not like . . . say we have a contract for $250,000.00, where one would have similar firms -- like Sollitt and Hickey -- who are going to be bidding relatively closely. We have firms that vary in size from three contractors to as many as nine people on a staff. Actually, it is not a "Cost" estimate. We have no ability to do a bonafide cost estimate. One reason is that we do not have an engineer or an architect on staff. We don't have the ability to hire anybody, at least from the budget that has been approved by the Council this year for me. Also, we can't hire an outsider to do the estimating because of the,high cost there. It would run approximately $125.00 to $150.00 per estimate. Now if you figure we do over 300 estimates a year, that would run into some money. It would be a bit costly. We have gotten together with the City Engineer's office and Bill Slabaugh was very helpful in providing us with some insight into where we have made some possible errors in our cost esti- mate. One of his suggestions made this week was that we do a more extensive unit price contract, -or unit price bidding pro- cedure. The procedure we have now ... let "s take an item like roofing for instance ... we'll put down the number of square feet and the type of roofing to put in and the process. The con- tractor just gives us a bulk price for that amount, but he does not break it down any further in terms of the price per square foot and nails and everything else included-- the contingencies associated with that item of construction. What Bill's.suggestion was -- and it was a very good one -- was to have the contractors break down their unit prices even further. That way it will stabilize our prices and we'll be able to also improve our cost estimates so that we can get an average idea of what the overhead and administrative costs are for these contracts so we can, in the future, adjust our labor and materials estimate to be an actual cost estimate. Right now it is pretty much in the discussion stage. Mr. Crighton: I also talked with Dick Ball, who is our planning and support representative from HUD, and Mr. Ball contended that cost estimates are actually only accurate as far as new con- struction is concerned, and where we are getting into rehabili- tation activities it is a little more difficult. He also stated that many cities involved with community development are not even obtaining cost estimates, they are merely letting the contracts for bid and selecting the lowest bidder -- because of the difficulties they have had with existing housing estimation. -5- 6. NEW BUSINESS (Continued) a Continued: The Chair: Apparently your manual, or the procedure up to now, didn't require you to put down ten percent for overhead and ten percent for profit, or something like that? Mr. Crighton: No, we have never been able to get a good idea of what the overhead costs and the administrative costs of these contracts are. The Chair: Everything I have been in this last year of course is small . . . concerning the clients I have had and so on, well even our building over there we did ... it was ten percent overhead and ten percent profit. They just list it right on the invoice. Is that right, Lloyd? Mr. Robinson: You're in the ball park, yes. I have a question, Keith, on this labor and material estimate -- that is never shown to the prospective.bidder is it? Mr. Crighton: No sir,. they get absolutely no idea of what our estimate is. That is absolutely confidential. Mr. Wiggins: Well, this, I would assume, is for the purpose of providing the advisory board, as well as your group, some idea of whether or not these bids are realistic. It seems to be pretty much of a guessing game in a way. I suppose there ought to be some way that you could plug in some sort of average figure, in terms of the items that are missing -- that of overhead, supervisory costs, and probably some contin- gency. They are foolish if they don't, because you run into a lot of contingencies. If fact, if they had more of them in the bidding, they would have less people up here, probably, for revising these jobs after they are started. The thing that I suppose causes me some concern, is how does the Bureau of Housing and the advisory board make a determination, be- cause we more or less have to follow in the same path, and I find it confusing. Mr. Crighton: Well, as far as the determination in concerned, if our estimate is generally within $2,000.00 of the bid price the advisory committee will not always, will sometimes, recommend approval on that. That's sort of an off -set rule of thumb that they use, but it does vary. For instance, if we have a contract, a bidder that has come in at $8,900.00 and the cost estimate was $6,900.00 and we checked the item prices and find some prices that are very much out of line . . . I'm talking about individual items within the contract . . . then the staff will recommend that the contract be rejected. It won't be recommended for approval. If we find a price that could offer a certain 6. N W BUSINESS (Continued) a. Continued: Mr. Crighton: (Continued) amount of variation, for instance the electrical work, we give just a very rough ball park estimate of electrical work re- quired,.because we are not electricians, and we do not know what a given house is going to take to bring it up to standard for the City of South Bend. One electrician may see a problem in rewiring a certain portion of the house and that would jack the cost up, so it will vary. Each item price is checked on the contract prior to recommendation of the staff. The Chair: I noticed on one of these you have a bid price lower than the labor and material estimate -- this one on South Grant Street. Mr. Crighton: Well, Mr. Slabaugh's suggestions were very well taken by the staff. He feels that if we do break down the prices further and include in the technical specifications a further in -depth description of the contingency items associated with the work bid on, that we would be able to stabilize our bidding prices considerably. I agree with his suggestion on that point. Mr. Wiggins: I notice in this particular group the only one that bid was Slatile . . . these other people took out the documents but nothing happened. Mr. Crighton: No, Mr. Madison was late I believe. Mr. Robinson: The bid is 40% over what their estimate is. Mr. Donaldson: Then, was Slatile the only bidder? Mr. Crighton: Yes, Slatile was the only one whose bid was here on time. Mr. Wiggins: Well, that kind of . . . probably didn "..t make all that much difference, but it has been a problem to get competitive bidding in many instances I know. Mr. Crighton: We have discussed this problem also, Mr. Wiggins, with the City Attorney's office and, as I mentioned I believe a month ago, I hoped to have a report back from Mr..Brunner's office at this meeting. Unfortunately, I do not. It is concerning a few changes that we want to make in our contracts one of which would be to eliminate the bidding by general contractors and we'll go directly with sub- contractors. There are problems relating to bonding and in- surance that we hope to iron out. What we propose to do a 0 EW BUSINESS (Continued) . Continued: Mr. Crighton: (Continued) would be to take ten or fifteen houses and put them on a specific contract for a specific skilled tradesman. For instance, we would have all the electric work for fifteen houses on one con- tract. I think we might be able to cut some of our overhead costs and some of our administrative costs. Mr. Wiggins: You might be able to cut 10% to 20% off of it, and have better control of the thing, I think. Mr. Crighton: That, along with Mr. Slabaugh's suggestion of item prices may give us a lot better block than what we are dealing with now. The procedure right now is very slow and we're not getting competitive bidding, you are right there, and I think that when we have signs like that it warrants some changing of procedure. Mr. Wiggins: Well, this is a mixed blessing too. I almost didn't get up here in an elevator that was awarded to the lowest bidder! The Chair: Refresh my memory -- approximately what was the last time when you lumped a bunch of these together hoping that you could get more bidders? Mr. Crighton: We have never done it under Community Development. We did it under E -6, but then again we used general contractors. This will be the first time that we have ever gone to specific sub - contractors. It will mean possibly a change in orientation on paper work and all sorts of mechanical types of things, but we may get better prices, which is what our ultimate goal is. Mr. Wiggins: I am sure in favor of trying it. The Chair: It is going to increase their workload, they'll have to really run around to see if everybody is on the job. Mr. Wiggins: They have to anyway. Mr. Wiggins moved for approval to award Contract SWCD2 /PR /CS- 1/05 at 419 S. Olive Street to Slatile. Mr. Robinson seconded the motion and it carried. Per recommendation of the Southeast Advisory Board, Commission APPROVAL authorization requested for approval of the following bids for OF BIDS Contract award, subject to South Bend Common Council approval BY and legal counsel review: SLATILE Me 6. NEW BUSINESS (Continued) b Continued: 7. C SWCD2 /PR /CS -1 /O1 602 S. Brookfield St. $7,225.00 Slatile SWCD2 /PR /CS -1/02 602 S. Grant St. $5,915.00 " SWCD2 /PR /CS -1/04 726 S. Warren St. $6,150.00 " SWCD2 /PR /CS -1/06 718 S. Harris St. $5,145.00 " Mr. Brownell: I might point out that the other two contracts are recommended for rejection of bids that come up under 6(c). Mr. Wiggins moved for compliance with the recommendations of the Southeast Advisory Board. Mr. Donaldson seconded, and motion carried, approving the above bids for contract award. Per recommendation of the Southeast Advisory Board, Com- mission authorization requested to reject bids for the fol- lowing contracts, and for review and re- advertisement of bids for same as soon as possible: SWCD /PR /CS -1/03 417 S. Carlisle St. $9,045.00 Slatile SWCD /PR /CS -1/07 430 432 S. Olive St. $7,935.00 " Mr. Robinson moved that these two bids be rejected, Mr. Donaldson seconded, and motion carried. GRESS REPORTS S le of Parcel 2 -6A to Peoples First Federal in the amount of $ 8,579.60, was completed, and the deed was recorded on March 4, 1 77. M%. Brownell :; That means that we have collected the money. T e Chair: You might make a report on your trip to Indianapolis, a d your appearance in front of the committee. Mr. Brownell: Alright, Mr. Chapleau and I went to the Indiana H use and attended a committee meeting on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. oi Senate Bills 55 and 56. At that hearing two other bills ware considered, one passed and one was rejected. After testi m-ny, from Jeff Hays who is sponsoring our bills, and Tor: C apleau and myself, the committee voted 7 to,O in favor of passage of both bills. The amendments were taken down by the 1 gi'slati:ve counsel. How he will write them up I don't know, I hope it comes out similar to the bond counsel's suggestion. T e Chair: I've asked Bob DuComb to bring home copies of t ose bills tonight, if they have been printed in time, and I'll get those to you. BIDS REJECTED FOR REHAB CONTRACTS SWCD2 /PR /CS- 1/03 & 07 SALE OF PARCEL 2 -6A TO PEOPLES FIRST FED. COMPLETED MR. BROWNELL & MR. CHAPLEAU APPEAR BEFORE COMMITTEE RE SENATE BILLS 55 & 56 7. Pf RESS REPORTS (Continued) Mr. Brownell: They told me that there was a possibility that iF the House passed those bills with the amendments that the S pate might concur without a conference committee. I don't k ow how that is going to work out. Mr. Kovach was the author oF the bill in the Senate and Hays was the author in the House. A least we got the 7 to 0 vote we went after. Tie Chair: Kevin, before you came in Mr. Brownell reported t at the situation with Standard Oil on the vacation and so ol has been settled, the document has been signed and it is a matter of netting it down here without going through the mail. . Butler: Yes, they are going to deliver it next week. Mr. Brownell: I talked to her this morning and she said that n ither Sturgis nor Goshen is coming through, so she doesn't k ow whether they'll come down or not. She said she would try to call me back this afternoon. If they aren't coming d wn then we'll have to pick it up. I am hoping they come d wn, because we will have a problem with getting somebody up t ere. We are trading documents - Kevin has given me the d cements we are to furnish to them and they will furnish us tie dedication of the streets. 8. NEXT COMMISSION MEETING e Chair: There being nothing further, the next Commission eting will be on Friday, April 1, 1977 at 10:00 a.m. . Wiggins: Isn't that rather dangerous meeting on that date? 9. ADJOURNMENT re being no further business before the Commission, motion made by Mr. Wiggins for adjournment at 10:26 a.m. Motion seconded by Mr. Donaldson and carried. rowneii, Lxec- (SEAL ) -10- , President AGREEMENT WITH AMOCO RE ENCROACHMENT NEXT COMM. MEETING 4 -1 -77