A Quandry

Unnofficial Minutes of the Infrastructure SubComittee of the Entrance Advisory Group Committee
May 26th

Attended the meeting this morning which lasted about an hour and forty minutes. Some highlights:

• General disappointment about the lone bid for hardscape ($600,000 for two entrances) and the lack of bidders (1 for hardscape, none for landscape)
• Major components of cost, the stone itself and prevailing wage.
• Conjecture that "risk" scared off some potential bidders and the fact that they had to conform to predetermined plans may have taken away possibility of creativity to achieve same results with lower cost.
• Much discussion on ways to address costs...possibility of "value engineering".
• Did the community/committee publicize the availability of the opportunity to bid? Alderman DeJong said he called nine firms listed in the phone book.
• Discussion about design built basis bid might encourage lower cost.
• Decision by the SubCommittee to have Messrs. Cantwell, Schlagge, Dabner, Miller to approach the lone bidder MTS, have a meeting with MTS and get a better understanding of the components of the bid and feedback to bring the project in at a lower cost.
• Potential for another meeting of the SubCommittee on June 7/8 to discuss results of the meeting.