Jun 11, 2018 Public Utilities Board on 2018-06-11 9:00 AM

I'll go ahead and call the Monday, June 11, 2018, public utility board meeting to order. And we do have some guests here related to one item that's under individual consideration. So rather than going into closed and doing that first, we'll go ahead and take-- as our first item will be item B under the-- individual consideration part of the agenda. And that's to consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, the Texas Home Real Municipal Corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with Nelson and Morgan Architects for the architectural design services for renovation of service center and 651 Mayhill as set forth in contract that's included in our backup. So I think Mario is going to do the presentation on this. Mr. Chairman, members of the PUB, thank you for having me here. Mario Kanazaro, assistant city manager. I wanted to present a number of slides to you to talk about our service center project along with the renovations to 651 Mayhill. Back in February, we made this very similar presentation to the city council. And then we followed up with a presentation to the public utilities board in March. And the issues that we covered that day or that morning were the history of the service center, just to kind of give you some background on that, the fact that the facility was built in 1980 or opened in 1980 and it's been expanded a few times. But we're out of space for city operations. And it's very difficult, nearly impossible, to expand unless you add additional square footage to it. Also talked about how we came up with some alternatives. Staff came through some alternatives looking at some other facilities that the city owned and the opportunity to move some existing operations out of the service center into another nearly vacant facility to allow us to expand within the service center. And we also talked about the financial implications. So I'm going to cover some of those slides here shortly. And then at the end, go through the proposal, not at length , but just briefly cover the proposal that was presented. Because at the conclusion of those two meetings back in February and March, both boards, both groups provide a recommendation to staff to go and seek some design options to bring forward as a contract. And so what we're doing here is just presenting to you a proposal from Nelson Morgan Architects that if the PUB gives us direction to move forward, we'll make the same presentation to the city council. So just to kind of give you a quick overview of the service center campus, it's 46 acres in size. It includes a number of facilities located off of Mingo Road and industrial area. It includes all of our field operations, with the exception of DME. DME actually did originate there, but over time has moved out of the service center. And so while there is a support function there at the service center through the radio operations, DME does not have a physical presence there at the moment as far as staffing and equipment. They do have some of their supplies that's administered through materials management, our purchasing function. But as far as having a physical presence there on site, they do not have that. Also our fleet services division is housed there at the service center in a separate facility where they operate and manage and maintain all of our fleet vehicles. And we also have some areas where we have dirt, fill materials that's used, various construction projects, maintenance projects throughout the city for city operations. The two facilities that we're talking about this morning and that we've been focusing on is the service center and the traffic operations building. These are the slides that you saw back in March. And to give you a few statistics here, the service center, as I mentioned earlier, was built in 1980. The traffic operations building actually was built in the 1960s with a different use, was actually our original animal shelter. Back in 1980, the population of Denton was just under 50,000. And currently, 2016, 2017, certainly we've exceeded 135,000 people by now with the amount of growth that we've had in our community. And also too, just some other quick hits as far as facts, back in 1980, the city was about just under 33 square miles and we're just now under 100 square miles in size. And so, and then lastly, the staffing when it was opened back in 1980 was 110. And the service center now houses, at least as of 2017, 250 plus employees. And so, and I would imagine it's been more because we've been able, we've added staff over the last number of months through a variety of operations and streets and engineering. Again, another visual of the service center houses, as I mentioned, just under just over 250 employees. It is cramped for space, there is no room for growth unless you build out from the building itself. But again, as I mentioned before, we came up with some options that the PUB and the council felt were favorable based on utilizing existing space. One of the key complaints that I hear from a facilities management perspective is a lack of restrooms at the service center, plus just a configuration of those restroom facilities. As I mentioned to the PUB and the council, as you walk into, and you'll see some pictures here in a minute, as you walk into the service center lobby , the restroom facilities, both male and female, are just behind a wall. But when you walk into those restroom facilities, it's your typical toilet and laboratory fixtures, but you also have shower facilities there too. So it's not the most inviting thing when you have the public or consultants or contractors come in doing business there, and we do have a lot of, quite a bit of visitors that come in and out for various meetings, bid openings, pre-construction meetings, et cetera. And when you join those functions with a, I would call it more of a private facility when it comes to restroom, with public facilities, it just doesn't intermix well. So it's not very user-friendly for the public nor the staff. To give you some pictures here, this was shown back, again, back in the spring. And again, I'm not gonna go through every picture, but as you can see, these are crammed spaces. The staff actually has been very creative in utilizing bay space for some areas where employees could eat lunch or take breaks or have staff meetings. And some of the areas here where my cursor is, if you can see this, this is the parks area. And this is actually a break room. It's kind of the far corner, but back here where my cursor is is a stove and a sink with refrigerators in the corner. But as you can see, these are basically permanent fixtures for the most part, these tables. And this is where our crew leaders and supervisors have their offices. So it's pretty crammed. And so if you're trying to have a meeting with staff, you're dealing with food and other things. And so again, they're just trying to be creative utilizing the maximizing the amount of space they have. Here below is a locker room area, which has also been converted into meeting space, because again, there just isn't any meeting space to be had . And in the front here, right in the front center is that lobby area that I mentioned to you. There's this wall next to the stairs. There's no one there to greet you. So if you're looking to go upstairs to visit with someone from purchasing, unless you know that it's upstairs, there's no one really to greet you and direct the incoming public or contractor to let them know where to go and help them facilitate and navigate through the facility. And then the bottom is that restroom facility that I mentioned. Again, the back there is the shower curtain along with the restroom stalls and the laboratory fixtures. So again, just kind of give you a perspective of the conditions that our service center employees are in. When we visited back in the spring, this is the layout of the first and second floor of the service center. And as you can see, there's a number of different functions and operations here at the service center. And one of the largest areas that encompasses a lot of the square footage of the space is materials management, just under 30,000 square feet. And actual in purchasing on the second floor, purchasing administration, Karen and her team, the buyers and some of the admin staff operate here on the second floor. And this actually, the thought is that these folks would stay, but the thought is if we had the opportunity to move 30,000 square feet of space into another existing facility, that would allow us to have the space to move into. It's level, it's tall, and so there's plenty of room for growth. And so again, that's one of the options that we considered. And so the thought would be is to move that 30,000 square feet, 30,000 square foot space over to 651 Mayhill. Again, to talk about the traffic operations building, as I mentioned, it was built in the 1960s. It's approximately 4,000 square feet size square foot facility. It's a former animal shelter two times over. And we are in a newer animal shelter facility and the former animal shelter facilities have been repurposed now a couple of times. It's been utilized by traffic since the mid 80s. We house approximately nine full-time equivalents, nine employees there. While it does have a garage area, it really has no vehicle bays because basically that's where they store some of their trailers. So they really can't keep any of their equipment indoors out of the elements. So it's, for the most part, it's either under an awning or out in the elements. So that's critical for some of our equipment that we have is to keep it indoors or at least in a bay area to keep it protected from the elements. Again, it's crammed, there's really no room to grow. And it's not designed for new technology just based on where the facility is and the type of equipment that's in there now. Some visuals to give you an idea of what's inside Traffic Ops. This is here where my cursor is, is that bay area. You can see that garage door, but that's where they keep one of their trailers and they keep their signs and markings and other inventory in there. So again, not enough room to pull in a pickup truck or some of their other equipment that they need to operate to do their jobs. And so again, very cramped for space and the technology just isn't functioning there. It's not really suitable for new technology in that building. So in that slide earlier that I showed with the materials management at 30,000 square feet, the thought was if we could move materials management out of the service center into a facility that's currently owned by the city, Solid Waste, it was purchased a number of years ago. It was a former Department of Defense warehouse. I believe that my understanding of that history of that facility is when soldiers would be deployed overseas, they would keep their belongings there, vehicles, other personal belongings that could be created. They were housed here. So again, it's basically a warehouse space. And so the thought is, it's 81,000 square feet of space. The thought is if we could move materials management into this space, retrofit it as necessary with the racks and offices and other restroom facilities that are required to maintain a functioning operation, why not utilize an underutilized space? And again, allow us to use valuable space to move some of our operations into the service center. And secondarily, if we could also, knowing that traffic operations needed space and they were actually part of the 2014 bond package to build them a new operation center, why not utilize 10,000 square feet of the space here at 651 Mayhill and move that operation over there as well? So that way you have materials management in this 651 along with traffic operations. So that was, again, just kind of give you a perspective of just a visual of this square footage. Again, not drawn to scale, but 61,000 square feet of materials management would be at the 651 facility and then traffic would operate 10,000 square feet. Still leave about 10,000 for future expansion, whether for materials management or for traffic or for some other operation that might be needed here at the city. But that was the thought and that was basically the presentation that was made to PUB and the council and along with the project cost. And so just to kind of give you an opportunity to read through all the numbers. All in, if we were to do all of these projects, it's just over, just under $14,500,000. That includes construction, design, furniture and fixtures, any development fees, any type of flat work that would be required at the service center or at 651 Mayhill 'cause there would be the need to build some parking, also a lay down yard, which would allow some equipment to be placed on concrete outdoors. So all in, it's 14,500,000. 3,300,000 would be for the traffic operations function. I'm sorry, 3,300,000 would be for materials management. 2 million, just under 200,000 for traffic and then just under $9 million for the service center. So these were the slides and again, these have been condensed some to not go through every single slide that was presented to PUB and council but was presented back a few months ago. And then overall, based on this information, both the PUB and the council directed staff to go and seek a request for qualifications to select a design firm to do the architecture and design of both 651 and at the service center. So since then, this is what we've done. Working with purchasing, they did issue a request for qualifications for architectural services. We did receive seven proposals. Staff did receive seven proposals from a variety of firms, design firms, architectural firms. A selection committee was convened. They reviewed the qualifications of all seven firms and based on the recommendations of that committee, they selected Nelson Morgan Architects of Denton to be the architecture record for these projects. Based on negotiations with Nelson Morgan to do all three facilities, design all three facilities, it came out to $918,402.53. As you can see, this is the top graph here. This top chart is their design proposal for the three different facilities. And then below these two, on the bottom, I've broken out the cost so you can see them by respective facility, by respective building. And I know there's been discussions, certainly with council, about design fees and the cost of design fees. So I wanted to make sure that the PUB and then the council will see this as well. You can see the breakdown of the cost of what the consultant is proposing for this project. The majority of the fees are for Nelson Morgan, but there are also some fees that need to go to, whether it's mechanical engineers, structural engineers, civil, things of that nature. And so I wanted to break those down as well so you can see what's being proposed for this project. Based on that, this is basically my presentation. I just wanted to present this to you all as promised that we believe that this is the best way to move forward and move ahead and get started on these projects. Again, the staff and the space is, we need to expand, we need to add some additional space for operations. We think this is the most expeditious manner in which we can get this done and not require major expenditures because of additional facilities that might need to be built. It allows us to utilize existing space. It allows us to move pretty quickly and not have to know the interior facilities that are already there. And allows us to move ahead and get going on this. And then hopefully get into these facilities within the next year. Any questions? - Questions. - I was looking at the breakdown of the funding services. So is the traffic operations is coming from the bond fund because that bond, when that was voted on, that was about roads and traffic? - Well, there was an actual, I believe there was an actual proposition for a traffic operations building in the 2014 bond program. It was part of an overall transportation. - Okay, okay, thanks. I hadn't remembered that specifically there. And then if you could just explain kind of why the decision to have the service center come from revenue and then from materials to come from CO. - Well, my understanding on materials management with the certificates of obligation, there are some COs that are available in solid waste because it is gonna be a solid waste facility. Then materials management through, it would be basically paying solid waste back through lease payments on an annual basis or monthly basis, however it is calculated. So the thought would be to be able to provide that funding and then pay back the solid waste fund for the asset. As far as revenue funded capital, those are some available funds that are available in a variety of different departments, whether it's water, wastewater, streets, and drainage. And so the revenues are available in those respective funds to be able to at least fund the design of the service center. And then once we bring forward the construction documents and do some cost estimation with our consultant, we'll bring forward that to the board along with the council to get further direction on how to proceed before we go to bed and make sure that we're good on our numbers and they're comfortable with the numbers. - Yeah, that was my, the point I wanted to raise was, I know the traffic operations building was part of the 2014 GEO bond proposal. But I guess once we see what the cost really is, we'll come back and look at, okay, how's this gonna be funded going forward. Also, the other thing I wanted to point out is it looks like when we did the project, the estimate, I'm not sure when this was done, but it looked like the design fees in the estimate was about a million, 149. And so this actual contract is less than that. So it's under budget. - Yes, sir. - I wanna point that out as well. - Under the budget estimate. Yes, sir. - Yeah, okay. Any other questions, comments? - I have one, remind me why this is the pub issue. - Why it's being brought before the Public Utilities Board? Because it houses water, wastewater, drainage, and we wanted to make sure that we brought it forward just to present it to you and get your recommendation if you believe it's important because of those funds that are being used. And you will receive those, and you provide guidance and direction on those budgets. And because also it's a solid waste facility as well. - I have a question on the evaluation. They're very close, a 99 and a 95. What was the past experience that gave one person a 40? - Well, the past experience, and I was not on the panel. So I was not on the evaluation panel. But Nelson Morgan has assisted the city over the last number of years with our facilities master plan. So they're very familiar with the city facilities. They understood the need of getting these facilities designed and constructed as soon as possible. They had already done some of the legwork when it came to understanding the number of staff that would be added over the next number of years. So they had done some legwork. So not to have to start from scratch helped. And so that's what gave this firm the leg up. - All right, thank you. - Okay, any other questions? Do we have a motion then on item B? - I'll move. - Second. - I have a motion and a second. I'm assuming for approval. - Yes, move approval. Thank you, Randy. - Thank you. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? Same sign. Okay, thank you, Mario. - Thank you. - Okay. So at this time, there are some things on the consent agenda that we do have related to some closed meeting items. So at this time, we will convene into a closed session to discuss three items. Item A is deliberations regarding real property to discuss, deliberate, and receive information from staff and provide staff with direction pertaining to the potential purchase of certain real property interest out of the Alexander Hill server. Okay, it's about 16 minutes after 10 on June 11th. We're back into open session. In our regular meeting, first we have our consent agenda. There are four items on the consent agenda. I would ask if any member would like to have any of these pulled for individual consideration. - I would like to have item B pulled. - Pulled, okay. - I had just, full disclosure, I plan to vote against it for reasons I had stated before. So I myself don't need a whole new presentation on it, but if others would like that. - Okay. Any other item? No? - No. - None, okay. Then is there a motion for approval or motion on, excuse me, items A, C, and D on the consent agenda? - I move for approval. - Second. - We have a motion and a second for approval of items A, C, and D. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? Very good, motion passes on items A, C, and D. Item B, which we'll look at individually, is consider recommending adoption of an ordinance of the city council, of the city of Denton, Texas Home Real Municipal Corporation, providing for, authorizing, and approving the execution by the city manager or his designee of a base contract for sale and purchase of natural gas between the city of Denton and Conoco Phillips Company. Okay, you had questions or comments? - No, I had stated my reasons before. - Sure. - They still stand. - Okay, very good. Any other questions or comments about item B? Do we have a motion on item B? - Move approval. - I second. - Motion and a second for approval. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. - Aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? - Nay. - One nay. Okay. Next we have under individual consideration the consider approval of the public utilities board meeting minutes of May 21st, 2018. Those draft minutes have been distributed and would ask if there's any changes, suggestions, questions? Alteration? Okay, not as there are motion to approve as submitted. - So moved. - Motion and-- - Second. - Second, thank you. Discussion? All in favor say aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? Same sign. Okay, we've already taken care of item B on this section so we'll go to item C, which is consider recommending approval of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas the Texas Home Rural Municipal Corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with Burgess and Niple Inc. for design services of the Morse Street Loop 288 to Mayhill Road Street Improvement as set forth in the contract and providing the expenditure of funds therefore and providing an effective date for design services ordered to Burgess and Niple Inc. and the Inoptic Suit amount of $255,000. - Good morning, I'm Chad Allen, Deputy City Engineer and I have a brief presentation about the Morse Street expansion project. The limits are between Loop 288 and Mayhill Road. So I'm here to ask that you consider approving a professional services agreement with the city of Denton and Burgess and Niple Inc. in the not to exceed amount of $255,000. We're bringing it to PUB because that not to exceed amount includes $24,350 in utility funds for the design of water relocation improvements associated with the project. So this is a map of the project. We're widening Morse between Loop 288 on the West End and Mayhill Road on the East End. Right now, Morse Street is four lane divided roadway between Loop 288 and Kimberly Drive. And then between Kimberly and Mayhill, it's only a two lane road. So we're gonna widen it to a four lane divided road between Kimberly and Mayhill. And then we're also going to do a mill and overlay maintenance operation on the north side of Morse Street between the Loop and Mayhill. So a little information about the background of the project and the RFQ, the Morse Street expansion project was authorized as part of the 2014 bond program. Again, we're gonna widen it between Kimberly and Mayhill to four lanes with a median. We're selecting our engineering consultant based on an RF request for qualifications for professional engineering services that was solicited using the city's formal solicitation process. In March of this year, the city council approved a pre-qualified list of engineering firms to do this type of design. So Burgess and Nopple Inc. is one of the qualified firms that submitted for the design of roadways, intersections and bridges, and we're selecting them to do the Morse Street project. The engineering scope of services includes street widening improvements, storm drain improvements, and then design of the water line relocation. That uses utility funds and that's why we're talking to PUB today, $24,350 is used from utility funds to design the water line relocation improvements. The scope also includes roadway lighting, bid and construction phase support, preparation of right of way acquisition documents, SUE and geotechnical engineering, and public involvement support. Here's a map that shows the water line relocation. This is Morse Street between Kimberly and the Loop, it's four lanes divided, and then in this section we're gonna widen it between Kimberly and Mayhill. This is the water line that we may have to relocate and move depending on whether it conflicts with the roadway improvements or if it is in bad condition. So our recommendation is that you recommend approval of the professional services agreement between the city of Denton and Burgess and Nopple Inc. for $255,000 which includes the $24,350 in utility funding. I'll try to answer any questions if you have them. - Any questions on this? Just, I was, general comment on the entire project that makes perfect sense to extend that little piece of Morse Street, especially as Mayhill gets expanded, provides a good east to west access to Mayhill from the Loop and vice versa. So it's not very many linear feet, but it'll be a good improvement for us for east to west access. - And I think, I mean the part that pertaining most to PUB, the water lines is just so necessary. - Yep. - Yep. - Absolutely. - Okay. Other comments or do we have a motion on item C? - Move for approval. - Motion to approve, is there a second? Second? Discussion? All in favor say aye. - Aye. - Any opposed? Same sign? Item D is ACM update, thank you. - Mr. Chairman, members of the board, I'll be brief. In your packet, you'll have your feature agenda item list along with the new business matrix. I believe a majority of the items of the new business matrix have been responded to back, to the PUB and believe we'd still have one outstanding item regarding solid waste that will be covered in the budget process and budget conversations. Also in your packet is a white paper that was co-presented by PS Aurora and a consultant with Black and Veatch at the 2018 conference of the Water Environment Association of Texas and it was regarding our wastewater asset management plan. So if you have any questions regarding that, Mr. Aurora is here to answer any specifics to that, but is included in your packet for your review. Nothing further. - Okay, any questions? Just as a comment, command PS. - As always. - On your presentation, it's good to see the city of Denton wastewater program is being used as a good example of how to do things right. It's always encouraged me, so thank you. Okay. Concluding items, under section 551.042, the Texas Open Meetings Act, responding inquiries from the Public Utilities Board or the public with specific factual information or recitation of policy or accept a proposal to place a matter on the agenda for an upcoming meeting. Yes. (laughing) Two, we got both sides of the room here. - I was reading recently about the markets for recycling materials and that a lot of cities are looking at not selling them because it's not advantageous and I'd like an update on that for us. And then also on commercial, I know that we don't do a lot of commercial recycling and do we have any plans to kind of increase that? I hate to see plastic and glass going into a landfill. - Yeah, I agree. - And aluminum, so. - And costing us more money than we would have. - Yes, yes, so. And I think that's where the bulk of those materials would be coming from is commercial businesses. - And we might include in that also, you know, there's some private recycling firms that contract with some of the larger users like, I don't want to give anybody as an example, but some of the big, larger retail people. - At the end of the Walmart, they do their own. - Yeah, yeah, they bail it and then it's a third party that collects it. - Right. - So that, put that in the mix, I guess. - And then Deb had. - Yes, you had one, Deb? - Yeah, so a future agenda item. And this is about the, I'd like to see a staff presentation at some point, you know, relatively soon about the different kinds of air testing that have been done, you know, the one kind that was done and then the one that's going to be done on the deck because there is confusion, including in myself as to what kind of testing had been done and what kind will be done. So I did some, you know, self-educating and it seems to me that, or from what I learned, there are these two kinds of testing that we have done and are doing. There's the, and I wrote down the acronyms here, the new source performance standard, NSPS, and then the national ambient air quality standards, NAQS, and as soon as I read about that, everything that had been confusing to me before made sense. So I would, I wonder if that would help the public and us and even council to better understand what's the difference between this. I still have to look back to what I wrote, the NSPS and the NAQS. I think that that would help to clear up a lot of confusion and would be really helpful. - We are planning on a presentation in the next two or three meetings and trying to arrange to have our black and beach team back . So with their experts in order to explain the results, they were our representative to ensure that all the air quality monitoring was done appropriately and within the contract parameter limits. So we'll get them back here and answer all of your questions. - Yep. - Good, very good. Anything else, anybody, any member would like to see on future agendas? If not, is there a motion to adjourn then? - So moved. - Motion and a second? - We didn't know what to do, Brendan wasn't here. - All in favor say aye, yeah. That's usually Brendan's job. (laughing) We are adjourned, thank you.