Landscape Beautification Committee Agendas & Minutes

LANDSCAPE BEAUTIFICATION COMMITTEE Village Hall, 2nd Floor Conference Room August 31, 2011 at 1:30 p.m. Landscape Beautification Committee Meeting 1:30 p.m. In Attendance: Louella Preston – Trustee John Ryan – Landscape Architect Ives/Ryan Group Inc. Susan Bus – Finance Chuck Ostman – Community Development Bob Pilat – Public Services Rosemary Palicki – Trustee Mary Ann Starzynski – Recording Absent: None Meeting called to order by Louella Preston. A motion was made to approve the minutes of the July 20th, 2011, motion by Chuck Ostman which was seconded by Bob Pilat and all approved. Louella Preston started discussion of the beautification plan which was drafted by Bob Pilat. The total grant amount is $233,633.00 which expires December 31, 2011. It was announced that KGI Landscaping would have a representative coming in at 2 p.m. as John Ryan had to make numerous corrections to the bid due to math errors and also felt this was an opportunity to qualify the bidder. John Ryan stated that he had come up with a price that was considerably different than the bid amount. He stated that it was not uncommon to have errors but not this many. He stated that KGI had bid on items that were not-in-contract. Susan Bus responded that all the contractors had math errors in their bids. John Ryan responded that the Village needed to clarify with KGI irrigation as the price was alarmingly low, curb price as that was almost nonexistent and that the plant material was an okay bid and plaza stone wall was fine. Louella Preston then asked if it was an unusual way to bid out this type of project and John Ryan and Chuck Ostman both responded no that was normal practice. John Ryan stated that Flecks Landscaping uses a holding area for plants – a middle man – which therefore makes it more expensive. Continental Construction is not a landscaper themselves so they would be subcontracting the landscaping portion. The Village is not aware of whom the subcontractor would be and therefore Continental Construction was eliminated. John Ryan stated that he and Bob Pilot looked up KGI Landscaping on the internet and noticed that they have contracts with municipalities and have renewed twice with Evanston for their maintenance contract but that is not construction. He was curious to the size of the company as there was no information given on their website. Susan Bus noted that KGI had listed in their proposal similar jobs and questioned whether the Village had contacted any for references. Bob Pilat responded that overall they are a recommended company. Skokie uses KGI for landscape maintenance and felt they were 1 reliable. Evanston uses KGI for planting beds, annuals and had no issues. Wilmette used them for landscaping, sod restoration and snow plowing and had no issues. The City of Chicago simply said they are fine. Bob Pilat stated that landscape maintenance was the main purpose of any prior work. John Ryan stated that KGI states they are a 10 -11 year old company. Louella Preston asked if it is common practice to include a balance sheet for the prior 2 years with the bid. Susan Bus responded – yes. It should be confidential but since being considered would have been opened to review anyway. Louella Preston then asked for questions in preparation to ask KGI when they arrived at 2 p.m. John Ryan responded that we wanted KGI to sell them selves. John Ryan stated that we should ask experience questions, review the errors in their bid and have KGI acknowledge them; clarify if they will be using subcontractors. Susan Bus responded that concrete may be an issue if they haven’t done enough of that type of work. John Ryan asked assuming we go with the KGI bid will the Village go with any of the alternates? Louella Preston responded that depends on the numbers. She will be contacting the Trustees and a copy of the pertinent information would be in their Friday packets. Whether they want to spend $20,000 to replace the pavers it is a very large expense. Bob Pilat asked if we needed to decide before next Wednesday’s meeting if the Village wanted to spend $20,000 to replace pavers. Chuck Ostman stated that Alternate #4 is a deduct if you don’t go with the full new pavers. John Ryan clarified that actually none of the scenarios have ALL new pavers. The base bid has some new pavers but not all. There was never a bid with ALL new pavers. Louella Preston stated so eliminating the sunburst pattern but in a positive way. John Ryan responded yes the deduct is for the lesser program, no bands and all we do is take out enough pavers to lay the planters. The sunburst would still be there. So for $234,000 price you get the full Cadillac of jobs but if you take $20,000 out of that you get the downgrade of pavers. John Ryan stated it would be cost prohibitive to totally replace. Louella Preston stated not getting new pavers, only getting new bands around planters. This was decided well before this year. Louella Preston stated consultant services, the grant and the non grant, $18,000 is from grant budget for consultant services and the other consultant services are coming out of the Village budget that was approved at the Village Board meeting in July. So consultant services are all taken care of. Bob Pilot stated that annuals are in the yearly Village budget which is separate from this project. John Ryan said there are no annuals included in this bid; they were not needed as annuals are part of the annual Village budget. John Ryan then stated to clarify following is the definition of each Alternate: Alternate 1- Fountain Plaza Curbs: Provide integral colored concrete in lieu of standard grey concrete for all planter curbs. 2 Alternate 2 – Fountain Plaza Curbs – Add decorative fencing to all concrete planter curbs per Alternate #2 detail on the drawings. Alternate 3 – Fountain Plaza Curbs – Provide Belvedere dry set decorative stone seat/retaining walls with Dimensional Coping both by Rosetta Hardscapes, LLC in lieu of the specified Base Bid concrete planter curbs, per Alternate #3 detail on the drawings. Price shall include the “additional raising” of the 2 existing manholes which fall within one of the planters and eleven inches of additional topsoil backfill. Alternate #4 – Fountain Plaza Curbs – Provide dry set natural stone seat/retaining walls (stone to match other specified wall stone) in lieu of the specified Base bid concrete planter curbs per Alternate #4 Details on the drawings. Price shall include the “additional raising” of the 2 existing manholes which fall within one of the planters and eleven inches of additional topsoil backfill. Alternate #5 – Fountain Plaza Curbs – Provide mortar set natural stone veneer seat/retaining walls on concrete walls and foundations (stone to match other specified wall stone) in lieu of the specified Base bid concrete planter curbs per Alternate #5 detail on drawings. Price shall include the “additional raising” of the 2 existing manholes which fall within one of the planters and eleven inches of additional topsoil backfill. Alternate #6 – Fountain Plaza Pavers – Reduce scope of paver work to the minimum amount of removal and resetting of the existing pavers and the total deletion of new paver materials and installation. Alternate #7 – Fountain Plaza – Tree Uplights: Provide ten tree uplights – compact Floodlights 50W Metal Halide by Kim Lighting or equivalent with five @ 1 per tree waterproof outlets for trees in new planters. Bob Pilot then stated that the total for KGI is $235, 504.50. Chuck Ostman stated with a grant total of $233, 663. Louella Preston commented so we are only looking at a difference of $2,000. Great work! Louella Preston asked Susan Bus if the Village has the right to approve Group 1, although we bid out Group 2, we don’t have to accept the bids for Group 2. Susan Bus responded no; need to include Group 2 because it was bid out. Louella Preston responded the Village should be able to withdraw and not accept bids for Group 2. The Village should have the opportunity to be able to choose not to do Group 2. GABRIEL Hostalet from KGI will now present his firm at 2:05 p.m. John Ryan started by staying that we should go through the bid, there were numerous math errors and therefore the price was adjusted. He then pointed out mistakes on page 3(Materials 3 and Labor), page 9(Maintenance garage), page 13(Annuals), page 14(not-in-contract items), page 15(Project grand total much lower), page 17(Not-in-contract items), page 18(Annuals), page 19(Totals change with all not-in-contract taken out). John Ryan explained that the math errors pertained to not-in-contract items and these were therefore taken out of the bid amount for a correct bid total. Gabriel Hostalet agreed with the corrections/changes. John Ryan then asked is business at prevailing wage? Gabriel Hostalet responded yes. John Ryan asked are subcontractors used. Gabriel Hostalet responded try to do in house do not plan to use any subcontractors. John Ryan asked you have done concrete/irrigation work yourself? Gabriel Hostalet responded yes. Chuck Ostman stated that it was possible that KGI would have to subcontract electric work. Gabriel Hostalet responded yes the electric will definitely be subcontracted out to a registered electrician. John Ryan stated the trees will be coming from Kankakee Tree. Gabriel Hostalet responded yes they intend to use Kankakee Tree as they always use them unless they are out of stock. John Ryan stated he would be tagging the trees and would like Gabriel and KGI to accompany him. Gabriel responded okay. John Ryan asked if we could have a sample of mulch submitted to verify the quality. Gabriel responded yes, they use Rainbow Farms. Gabriel then stated that KGI is a 10 year old company. They have performed municipal, state, federal work. They are a minority contractor. KGI will be starting to cater to North shore area homes. KGI designed and planted the State of Illinois building until the state budget was lowered. KGI worked for many years doing the Village of Wilmette until the job was lost in a bid process. Other references are Palatine Park district, CTA bus stations, train stations, Chicago Public School (lost job to a bid process), Evanston Green Bay Road, Skokie – various areas, and Mount Prospect planting trees for many years. Gabriel stated KGI follows up jobs – supervises all work and will work with the Village of Niles to guarantee satisfaction. John Ryan stated that the Village of Niles is a good size job and asked how many people would be involved in the job in order to complete by the end of the year. Gabriel responded they have separate crews for the hardscape and the landscape portions. There is one foreman in charge of the project. Gabriel himself has an engineering degree and will be involved himself. 4 Susan Bus then showed Gabriel the adjusted bid numbers for Group 1 and Group 2. Gabriel responded that the numbers were acceptable. John Ryan then stated that there were 7 alternate prices for the Plaza area. He restated that a subcontractor would be necessary for #7 and asked why the price for #1 for adding color to the concrete was so high. Gabriel responded honestly that the concrete was so reasonable they compensated for the cost in the coloring. John Ryan asked if the stone was going to be from Town and Country. Gabriel responded yes. John Ryan stated that the main key was to match what is out there currently. Gabriel responded yes. Gabriel stated that the Village could contact him at any time if they needed anything further. Louella Preston stated that the committee will be making a recommendation next Wednesday for a vote to approve and that we would get back in touch with KGI, Gabriel, after a decision is made. Gabriel left the meeting at 2:35 p.m. Bob Pilot commented that Public Services has used Rainbow Farms at one time. John Ryan commented that Gabriel had responded honestly to the concrete price versus the coloring price difference – that since they were giving away the concrete they were making up the price difference in the coloring. Chuck Ostman stated that he was still bothered by the width 20” and questioned if it would over power the planter. John Ryan responded that for a retaining wall to stand up it can’t be narrow. Chuck Ostman responded that Wheeling was 15”. John Ryan asked if it was dry set. Chuck Ostman responded that it appeared to be. John Ryan responded that the seat wall height is 18” and could vary the width at top to a more narrow measurement. John Ryan stated that the boxes will be wider therefore fewer pavers being relayed. Louella Preston responded that we would be losing 6 feet. John Ryan responded between planters currently is 16 feet. This will go down to 13 feet. The inside dimension would be a 9 foot plantable space. Will work fine but need to redo drawings for contractor because the bands will move so it is done properly. Bob Pilot asked if there are available funds to redraw. Louella Preston stated that it was necessary to redo the drawings to be accurate. Bob Pilot agreed need new drawings as build plans. Louella Preston then asked if the planters are sturdy enough and wide enough to sit on. Chuck Ostman and John Ryan responded yes. 5 Susan Bus said that a vote was necessary to decide on the design around flower beds, fencing. The Alternates 1 – 7 were then individually described again. John Ryan stated that the curbs are in the base bid. Louella Preston, Bob Pilot, Chuck Ostman, Susan Bus, John Ryan all chose Alternate 4(Closest to matching fountain) and Group 1. Alternate 6(reduced scope of redoing the pavers) was also agreed upon for a reduction of $20,000. Louella Preston then stated so we agreed to: Group 1, Alternate 4 and Alternate 7. ALL agreed. Grant is $233, 633 and out of the Village Budget would be $19,886.50. To add Group 2 another $27,349.50 would be added for a total of $47,236. Bob Pilot stated that John Ryan’s fee also needed to be added so the total that would be necessary to fund Group 1 and Group 2 with option 1 and 7 would be $55,141.00 (this includes consulting and all construction costs plus the grant total of $233,633. OUT OF POCKET would be $54, 141 for all or without Group 2 it would be $34,141. It is up to the Village Board to decide if to include Group 2. Louella Preston said she would need a full description of Alternate 1 – 7 and would need to explain to the Village Board the resetting of the pavers not replacing pavers. Louella Preston then asked if sealing the pavers was considered. John Ryan stated that it is something that would be an annual cost; sealing does make it more vibrant and helps to maintain the color. Louella Preston stated that the Village has never sealed before. Does the paver being reset need to be cleansed? She stated that it has been there since Pontarelli did it in 1996. Chuck Ostman suggested power washing at the end of the project which is included in the contract. Chuck Ostman then asked about Group 2 stone relocated at East and West Albion and 5 entrance signs. The signs were not to be replaced or repaired but ONLY the redesign. These would be replaced in the future. Louella Preston stated the 2012 budget has nothing budgeted for upgrading with new signs. Bob Pilot responded no ONLY redesign. Louella Preston responded that Group 2 would be all out of pocket. Feels signs are important, they look awful, and as a Trustee wants to know they can be fixed. Chuck Ostman responded go with Group 2 but keep landscaping out of it until signs are redone. Chuck offered to take pictures before the meeting scheduled for next Wednesday, September 7, 2011 of the entrance signs. Louella Preston then asked John Ryan what he would need from the Village. John Ryan responded that he would need to know if Alternate 4 was approved so he could have updated drawings done. Next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 6, 2011 at 1:30 at Village Hall, 2nd Floor Conference Room. Louella Preston moved to adjourn the meeting at 3:30pm. 6