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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJPBMinutes_2010_05_12JOINT POWERS BOARD MEETING MAY 12, 2010 The Joint Powers Board for the Brookings City/County Administration Building met in regular session on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 with the following members present: Alan Gregg, Michael Bartley and John Kubal. Also in attendance were Stephanie Vogel, Jeff Weldon, and Steve Britzman. Dennis Falken was absent. The board discussed the organization of the group following the city council’s decision to table action on hiring a construction manager. Brookings Mayor Tim Reed questioned how the board was organized. He said that this group started as a committee, but has changed with the formation of the Joint Powers Board. Mayor Reed believed the board should elect a chair and take formal motions and provide minutes to the full council and county commission. Mayor Reed said that he isn’t sure the council understood the powers of this board. City Manager Jeff Weldon agreed that the group should tighten up their procedures. He also said that he was getting mixed signals from the council on what the Joint Powers Board is allowed to do. Britzman referenced Section 13 of the Joint Powers Agreement between the city and county and reviewed the items that the full council and commission would be making decisions on, but he noted that the Joint Powers Board is not a legally separate organization. Britzman said that the decisions that will go back to the full boards are hiring architects and engineers, approval of final design and plans, bidding all contracts, all bonds and financing and the annual operation budget. Weldon noted that setting a construction budget is not listed, but he would never think of the full boards not approving a construction budget. In further discussing the board’s organization, Bartley explained that Weldon was designated as the Project Manager and he puts the agendas together as the manager of the project, not the chairman of the board. Weldon suggested they rotate a chair and vice-chair every 6 months. Motion by Kubal, seconded by Bartley to appoint Alan Gregg as chairman and Michael Bartley as vice-chairman of the Joint Powers Board through June 2010 with reorganization of the board to take place in July 2010. Vote: 3 ayes, 0 nos. Motion carried. Referencing concerns by the city council on the delivery method for the project, City Manager Jeff Weldon said that this board by consensus agreed to do the construction manager form and when they advertised for architects, the architects based their proposals on working with a construction manager. Kubal questioned what’s next after the council’s decision to table action on the construction manager. Britzman said that this is just a problem that has to be dealt with. Bartley said that he believed anything that involved the expenditure of funds would go back to the full boards. He said that this board has not expended any funds, but the action to table stops them at this point. Bartley asked if they want to reopen the construction manager agreement. Weldon said that he believes re-advertising won’t get them anything different. He said they received twelve proposals and only one was local. Mayor Reed said that to this point the Joint Powers Board has made recommendations based on information that cannot be made public. He said the council gets it and is told that this is the board’s choice, approve it. Reed said the rest of the council would like to see the process the Joint Powers Board went through. Kubal said that if the council comes back and takes the construction manager agreement off the table and if this board is given a new mission he wants very specific instructions. He said that he doesn’t like hearing from locals that they didn’t submit proposals because they knew they weren’t going to be selected. Mayor Reed said he wants the Joint Powers Board to present the information they used to base their decisions on so the council can make a decision from that. He says if the full council cannot see that information, then the Joint Powers Board should have the authority to just make the decision. The board also discussed the construction manager delivery form. Mayor Reed thought the council should have more discussion on the Joint Powers agreement and then discuss the delivery type and whether to go with a construction manager or not. Kubal noted that the architect signed up to do a construction manager type of project. Weldon said that determining a delivery type has not been an issue until last night’s council meeting. Bartley said that if you micro-manage this board, then it needs to be micro-managed from both sides. He said that the one local company, Walz Construction, that submitted a proposal admitted they were not qualified to do this project under the construction manager delivery form. Councilman Tom Bezdichek said that it was how the RFP was written and how those specifications were written. He said that you can write an RFP to exclude anyone. Weldon said the specs were written based on the decision of this board to go with a construction manager. Councilwoman Jael Thorpe said that maybe a joint city/county meeting would be beneficial to help with transparency, and she doesn’t think the council is micro-managing. She also noted that she didn’t know about the decision to use a construction manager delivery type until she read it in her council packet for their May 11th meeting. Weldon said that information was included in his memos each week on the building update. Britzman said that any individual concern is a fair one and should be accommodated and the board should establish procedures to address those concerns. The board discussed their meeting time and agreed to keep it at 7:30 a.m. every other Wednesday morning. Weldon updated the board on the Historic Review process. He said that the closing on the properties will take place between May 20th and June 1st. He said that there will be a public hearing at 4:00 p.m. on June 3rd regarding the Historic Review. Weldon said that no structures can be moved or demolished until the case review is done. He believes they will officially own the properties as of June 3rd, however, one agreement allows the owner to remove a structure, but he won’t own it after June 3rd and cannot move it prior to that because the historic review won’t be finished. Britzman said there are two possible buildings to be moved and he believes they can sit down and work through the timing issues and be accommodating with the current owners. The board also discussed declaring the structures on the property as surplus property. Motion by Bartley, seconded by Kubal that once the property is declared surplus, they sell it through an auction process. Vote: 3 ayes, 0 nos. Motion carried. Weldon noted that the demolition specs cannot be done until they know what’s left. Kubal ended the meeting with a quote from Benjamin Franklin. Motion by Kubal, seconded by Bartley to adjourn. Vote: 3 ayes, 0 nos. Motion carried.