Woodrow Wilson Building Committee

New Middle School Building Committee November 6, 2019 Special Meeting 5:30 p.m. Present: Mary Bartolotta, Chris Drake, John Giuliano, Kristy Byrd, Sheila Daniels, Rich Pelletier, Stephen Zarger, Phil Pessina, and John Phillips Absent: Ted Raczka, Sheila Daniels, Gene Nocera Also Present: Dr. Michael Conner, Superintendent of Schools, Peter Staye, Director of Facilities, Marco Gaylord, Director of Operations and Fine Arts, Randall Luther and MaryLynn Raditch, TSKP, Joe Vetro, Mark Jeffko, and Dan Hetzler O & G one member of the public Joe Vetro states we had another opening yesterday. The Chair states we should call the meeting to order. Meeting Called to Order Mary Bartolotta, Chair calls meeting to order at 5:41 pm. Public Comment Brian Kronenberger has one question and it is the current bide status and based on bid results how many city companies bid on it. None and the PLA is not the best interest of the local businessmen. He has been excluded from this project. There is a Phase 1 and Phase II and contingency to city is $4 and $3 million for the construction manager and the first phase $1 million was moved out from the City’s contingency - he asks what is left in the City’s contingency. He is not sure how or what happens to the money when it is pulled. He asks how much the City has available The Chair asks for other comments; seeing none, she closes public comment at 5:43 p.m. Chair asks for a motion to approve the minutes. Phil Pessina moves to approve. Rich Pelletier seconds the motion. Kristy Byrd states on the second page it states There are doors that can open from the outside and she doesn’t understand that. The suggestion is made it should be cannot open; Ms Byrd responds yes. Peter Staye states he was here as were Dr. Conner and Marco Gaylord. Staff states the minutes will be amended. The Motion to approve the minutes with the amendments was approved unanimously. Financial motions Phil Pessina would like a budget review and that it should be included in all meetings. Staff states this is a special meeting so it was left for that; the minutes were included to help move along the payment of bills. Chris Drake asks Mark Jeffko or Joe Vetro under B 2 would it be a general budget discussion. He asks if you were going to discuss where we are. Chair asks if there is other discussion under 3B. They can discuss budget there. 1 Joe Vetro, O & G, goes through the bid summary and they discussed passing some of the bid packages but they would like to put it off and would like to schedule another meeting next week when all the bids will be in. There are a total of seven packages that they do not have numbers for and they will take some in tomorrow and at the end of next Tuesday and they will have a clearer picture of where they stand. They are giving a review of where they stand today. On the Contract Summaries Page on the far right corner is they plugged in the low bid numbers they received to date and others they have received and they are looking at those two numbers and looking at overall budgets of the trades and they are over by about $686,000. They are not worried and they know the drywall package included $300,000 of work being carried in another package and the cost of that item will reduce the trade costs and come off the $686,000. They are looking at an over budget at a little less than one percent. What we were hoping to do was to award the site and concrete packages and get them onboard to start work. Chair Bartolotta asks all the information is in for those two bids. Joe Vetro responds yes. The question is if the committee is comfortable doing that or we can wait. Rich Pelletier states if we do that tonight it brings the schedule forward for two weeks. Joe Vetro responds yes, we would like to get the shovel in the ground and an advantage to get a shovel in the ground to award those packages or the committee can wait until next week. John Phillips states the purpose was to get the contract moving forward and we should do that. Joe Vetro states if we are at $600,000 over budget but we will have to look at options that have been built in the budget or look at materials that have been bid, but site and concrete we won’t see those types of savings. We have pulled out the low hanging fruit in those packages. Chair Bartolotta states foundation work and square feet will not change. I want to reaffirm that what we are looking you are not going to take in any other bids; these packages are closed. Joe Vetro confirms yes. Phil Pessina asks concrete and what is the other one; Joe Vetro states sitework. Chair Bartolotta asks if that is the number plugged in from last week. Joe Vetro states yes. We had a scope review with the company and went through the work items and special instructions. Chair Bartolotta they met all the qualifications and it was reviewed and was it reviewed by Donna at the City? Joe Vetro states he will defer to Dan on Donna. Chair Bartolotta what ever went out to bid, everyone met all the requirements. Joe Vetro responds yes. John Phillips point of clarity states you have more for approval. John Phillips asks about the steel. Chair Bartolotta asks if it met the bid requirements and there are no addendums. John Phillips asks if they are closed. Joe Vetro states yes and they met the punch list. He states if the committee feels they want to do this they can. They want to wait on HVAC because it is a value package. Chris Drake states sitework is the value one; he states steel, we have pending alternates on that one. If we approve the steel are we going with base bid and no alternates. Joe Vetro states it would be base work and do the alternates later on. The Photovoltaic was a deduct. John Phillips asks a question on this. Joe agrees. Chris Drake asks is it the same deal with HVAC, welded joints. Joe Vetro states that bid approval one can be held off. Chris Drake asks if they can do the base bid and hold off on the welded bid. Chair Bartolotta states you want sitework, concrete, and steel and hold off on hvac. John Phillips moves to approval bid 2.31 Mather Corporation for Sitework for $6,194,000; Steve Zarger seconds the motion. There is No discussion. Chair Bartolotta calls for the vote and the vote is unanimous to approve. The Chair states the motion passed unanimously. 2 John Phillips moves to approve bid 2.03 concrete to Universal Foundations, Inc. in the amount of $3,232,000; Rich Pelletier seconds the bid. No discussion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimous to approve. The Chair states the vote is unanimous to approve John Phillips moves to approve bid 2.05s structural steel to Schenectady Steel Co. Inc. in the amount of $4,400,000 base bid only. Rich Pelletier seconds the motion. Chris Drake asks Joe to explain the alternates, he doesn’t understand alternate #2 delete photovoltaic steel. Joe Vetro states when they delete the photovoltaic they are adding some of the steel underneath so you can do it later on. You are not eliminating very much; the only change is the other contractors looked that it would save them. You are still putting in the steel underneath, but the connection is not happening now. There is no manpower issue to make the connection between the photovoltaic and the steel. The others said you are not gaining anything and Schenectady is giving you $1,800 and we don’t have to look at that until the balance of the bids come in. It is in the base bid but if we take it out, his portion would be $1,800. Chair Bartolotta asks what the overall savings is. Joe Vetro states the electric is the biggest is and it is $463,000 from the electrical panels. The infrastructure will go in, but the physical panels would be $463,000. Randall Luther, TSKP states it is a good thing to have to drive operating costs down and the sSate is kicking in 65% and payback is fast, that is the highest priority for the Clean Energy Task Force and they will be unhappy if we take them out. It is a safety valve and it is the kind of thing that you could if the next round comes in and you can take the alternative now and if the contingency is $3 mill, you could add back into the job because the infrastructure is in place. We don’t want to do that, but we can. Chris Drake states the concern is how far along in the project are we that we have to be concerned that we are $600,000 over budget and we have to cut things we thought were the base project. Joe Vetro states we are still vetting things and if we see someone added additional scope in the package that is not needed we can go back out of the bid and rebid that package. There is still room to move even if we award steel, sitework, and concrete. Phil Pessina states we are $363,299 overbid; what concerns him is that we are playing with an overage of the project costs and I am hearing what ifs and I am not comfortable with that and we need a definitive figure that does not show an overage. We have these bids but we will play with them and keying on the number and it should be in the blue and not red. I am not comfortable being over budget already. Dan Hetzler states that is a genuine point. To get perspective after the first release we were over $50,000 and the second under by $1,000,000 and now showing $750,000 over netting $350,000. It is how I am scoping the work. There are a couple of bid packages that will put you in the black. We think there is some room and the general trades come in next week and architectural wood we may gain some ground but we don’t want to wait to move some of these along. Chris Drake states we did concrete and sitework and got off base with the steel. Randall Luther states Phil you are right and no one likes coming to you to say you are overbid and want you to approve some of the packages. Phil states I understand, but we as a committee need to be aware of the expenditures knowing we are on a balancing line and the lady on the right will keep us balanced. Phil states she kept our committee on task budget wise. We need to tread carefully without depleting the building we are building. Mark 3 Jeffko states there is not much in the superstructure we will change. We won’t be changing any of this and they are safe. Chair Bartolotta states this is the part of the project you should get right. Chair Bartolotta asks any further discussion. Rich Pelletier states by being two weeks ahead we can save money. Chair Bartolotta calls vote. It is unanimous to approve the bid to Schenectady Steel Co. The Chair states the vote is unanimous. Discussion on the Eversource bill which was incorrectly addressed and the power got turned off at the Trailer; O & G paid with a credit card, so they will need to be reimbursed. Elise McDermott states the Committee should also set up a utility line and fix the bill so it comes to me and it gets paid from month to month. Elise McDermott states two things need to be done: one, to pay the bill and two, to open a line to put money in the line for future utility bills. Elise states it includes night time lighting. Chair asks if this is an O & G expense or a City one; Dan Hetzler responds it is a softline contract and electricity usage and heating and is in your soft costs. Phil Pessina moves to approve the creation of a line item entitled utilities; Dan Hetzler states this does not show you what it should be. It is for construction power to heat the building and fuel building for electricity and the sum total should be $150,000. Chair states thank you; she wanted to know the number. Phil Pessina moves to create utility line for $150,000 for Eversource and fuel usage and relocation in the amount of $150,000 as recommended. Kristy Byrd seconds the motion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimous to approve. The Chair states the motion is approved. John Phillips moves to approve the payment of Eversource O & G bill for $951.53; Kristy Byrd seconds the motion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimous to approve. The Chair states the vote was unanimous to approve. Chair Bartolotta recognizes Rich Pelletier who moves to transfer $150,000 from fund balance into the administration utilities line. Phil Pessina seconds the motion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimous to approve. Chair Bartolotta states the matter passes unanimously. Chair Bartolotta reads item 4 regarding TRC. Randall Luther, TSKP would add that he saw there request for additional services and he thinks there are some errors in the invoice and asks the committee to not approve this or to approve language that says not to exceed but I should put eyes on it. He states he asked them to revise it. Staff asks if this is the invoice as well. Randall Luther states he doesn’t want to pay this; he will review it with TRC. Chair Bartolotta states we should table TRC. Phil Pessina moves to table the TRC Invoice and extra services until more information is received from TRC. Rich Pelletier seconds the motion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimous to approve; the Chair states the matter passes. Chair Bartolotta states we have a transfer of $382.28; Elise states at the last meeting we approved the Milone & MacBroom for $3,400; however there was a previous transfer of $500 for BVH that came out 4 of the admin line; Chair Bartolotta states we are approving this for the shortfall we created when we transferred the $500. Elise responds yes; those monies should balance out to -0- in there; no extra money will be out there. Rich Pelletier moves to approve the transfer of $382.28 from fund balance to admin line to meet the shortfall for approved expenditures. Phil Pessina seconds the motion. The Chair calls for the vote and it is unanimously approved. The Chair states the motion is approved. Discussion TSKP Randall Luther states they are continuing the scope review. Dan Hetzler, O & G has nothing; he will spend time after the meeting to respond to questions. He is looking forward to bids tomorrow Other Discussion Financial Review Elise states you will get the budget every month. She asks them to look at the proposed expenditures; if you notice there are internal change orders and Macchi Engineer that you have approved but the transaction has not taken place. Let’s use the energy cost of utilities for $150,000, I would include that under there as well. Underneath the current encumbrances you will see the number and after factoring the numbers in you will see the fund balance drop by that number. It is important to keep a tight control on those encumbrances. You have only the remaining balance and my goal is to make sure to keep all these monies as tight as possible and we will know where we stand and if it remains that we remain above budget by $686,000 it will be part of the balance. Phil states it is $336,299. So that is a lower number. Elise states yes; that is the number she would include. There is a discussion for a special meeting next week. O & G and committee decide since the Sitework, Steel and Concrete bid approvals have occurred, they will use the Dec. 12 meeting to complete the bid approvals. There is no need for a special meeting next week. Mark Jeffko states they will bring in all the bid packages and it will be the final construction value. Motion to adjourn Phil Pessina moves to adjourn; it is seconded and the chair calls for the vote. It is unanimous and the Chair adjourns the meeting at 6:35 p.m. Respectfully submitted Marie O. Norwood 5