With city Redevelopment Director Richard Knoll absent from the meeting, City Engineer Scott Harter took to the council the proposed contract between the Lakeport Redevelopment Agency and Quincy Engineering for the Lakeport Boulevard/S. Main Street intersection study.
The proposed contract price was $79,800, Harter said.
Nancy Ruzicka – who owns Ruzicka Engineering along with her husband, Cliff – went before the council to ask them not to approve the contract.
Ruzicka has been outspoken in recent months about the city's and county's need to keep such contracts local.
She said it was time the city of Lakeport stopped sending jobs over the hill to Mendocino County, Santa Rosa and Sacramento.
Ruzicka said her firm proposed to do the job for just over $49,000, $30,000 less than Quincy Engineering's bid.
Just this past week, Ruzicka said her firm went to a four-day week for its employees, and laid off two staffers.
The firm has had its proposals turned down on the last four city projects for which it has submitted bids, she said. The city staff members who sit on the consultant selection committee rated them last out of 12 firms, although Councilman Ron Bertsch, who sits on the group, rated them No. 1, Ruzicka said.
She said she just wanted fairness in the process. “It takes a lot of money and a lot of time to do these proposals.”
Last month, Rau and Associates was approved for a contract to do the engineering for the city's downtown improvement project. The city agreed to pay the firm $316,000 or the work – $60,000 higher than the price Ruzicka Engineering proposed, Ruzicka said.
“You're sending our tax dollars over the hill,” said Ruzicka.
Mayor Jim Irwin told Ruzicka that, at the council's last meeting, they directed staff to make modifications to the city's consultant selection process, and added a 2-percent – or two point – local advantage.
Ruzicka returned to the podium and told Irwin that 2 percent “is nothing.” She asked them to give local contractors a 10-point advantage in the selection process.
Councilman Ron Bertsch asked why they are doing the study now, when the work likely would be two to three years out.
Harter said the agency previously had directed staff to have projects ready to go and on the shelf in case funding became available. He said the Lakeport Boulevard and S. Main Street intersection has been identified as an area that needs assistance, and which has capacity issues.
Councilman Bob Rumfelt asked what would happen if they didn't go forward with the contract.
Harter replied, “You're likely looking at some sort of lawsuit, I'm not sure.”
Council member Suzanne Lyons asked if they could add a local preference to this process. Harter said they couldn't.
Lyons said the council approved a motion last spring to add local preference to the process and it went nowhere.
“It just seems we're not doing what we say we're going to do,” she said.
Harter said City Attorney Steve Brookes currently is working on that local preference policy.
Irwin noted, “This is the kind of thing that would fall under our new policy.”
“We have to have faith that the people who look over these RFPs (requests for proposal) know what they're dong and pick a company that can do it,” said Rumfelt.
At the same time, he said the council has been pounding on city staff to have projects ready to go.
Since the council already had approved Quincy Engineering as the firm for the job, “The way I see it, we're kinda bound by that decision,” said Rumfelt.
The council voted 3-2 – with Lyons and Bertsch voting no – to approve the contract.
The council also voted unanimously to participate in the Subsidized Employment Program, administered by the Lake County Department of Social Services Department, which will reimburse the city for the salaries of workers it places through the program. The program also is supposed to cover training and other associated employments costs.
Community Development Director Mark Brannigan told the council he was going to seek to have full reimbursement for the three positions he's seeking to have filled through the program – a water plant staffer, a mechanic and a clerical position for the Lakeport Redevelopment Agency.
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