Good morning and welcome to the regularly scheduled meeting of the Public Utilities
Board. It is 9 a.m. on December 9th, 2024, and we will open our meeting with any presentations
from the public. I don't think we have any presentations today. Moving on to the consent
agenda, items A, D, E, and F have been pulled for questions, so I'll consider a motion for
items B, C, and G. So moved. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion
passes. Now, item A. Good morning, everyone. Chris Carroll. I'm the Water Utilities Treatment
Division Manager for the City of Denton, and I'm here to talk about the 25% contract amendment
to the chemicals that we procure from vendors. So the purpose of this request, two things.
We've got extreme chemical cost increases from the vendors, and two, we've got significant
demand since 2021 when this contract went into place. Production was approximately six
billion gallons in 2021 total for the year. We are now over eight billion gallons a year.
And as you can see, we've got the current year in blue. It's averaging five to 10 MGD
over the last five-year average, which that's where we come up with that number. Chemical
usage, FARIC is our primary coagulant. Due to the increased demand, you can see now we're
from four million gallons up to almost five million gallons per year, and this is over
a five-year period. I'm sorry, could you slow down? What was that again you were pointing
at? This one right here, this is the FARIC, the usage right here, production chemical
usage. FARIC sulfate. Yes, correct. Okay. Yeah, and that's our primary coagulant. And
then this is over here is where we were talking about the treatment chemical price increases.
Our most significant one was sodium hypochlorite, which is used for disinfection. So we went
from like 12 cents a gallon all the way up to we're almost at $2 a gallon now. Yeah.
Can you tell us what's driving that price increase? It's manufacturing. The supply chain,
I think we're all aware of the issues that they've had. So a lot of these chemicals require
multiple products to create. And that's what we've been told is supply and then the availability
of the chemicals to create them. I mean, that's a very significant increase, much greater
than the rate of inflation. I completely agree with you. Currency exchange. Yes. I'm trying
to wrap my head around that. Yes, I think we all were when we saw this and it definitely
wasn't planned, especially on the sodium hypochlorite. Question? Yes. So it looked like it's not a
gradual thing. Is this like they just fell off the cliff as far as the price is going
up? Is that? Yeah. And what's interesting, it seems to have leveled off. Could you go
back to that? Sure. Let me see. This one right here. A reverse cliff. Yes. A nice hill. And
no indication at all. Like I said, it was the quarter three, 2022. We're all aware of
the supply chain. I know stuff that I've personally purchased, it's three times, four times as
much as it used to pay. And that was the reason that we were given. That's fine. Okay. Yeah,
appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Just an idea of what the vendors that are included in this
chemical contract, some of them can supply the same thing. We use that for redundancy.
If one was to run out, I mean, these chemicals are required to treat the water the way we
do. So usage forecasting, this production five year annual total on chemicals, it's
a little deceiving because when we get into 24, we haven't finished that year out. So
the graph's a little skewed, but it's, it's leveled off at least for now. We anticipate
though, that it's, it's going to continue that rise just because of the demand in the
system. I was going to ask a question about that, increase demand. It seems like the demand
has outstripped the growth in population or am I missing something? Has the, has the population
increased that, that many fold in just this few years? Well, from what I understand Denton
is on an 8% growth. I'm not sure about the industry that's here. Industrial usage can
increase that as well. I know there's several large developments, so I would anticipate
that we're going to see that gradual increase as we move through the year. And we've got
the expansions at Ray Roberts planned to take it all the way up to 50 MGD. We have the expansion
at Pecan Creek, which is going to take us to 26 and eventually 30, and then some projects
in Clear Creek and Hickory Creek as well. And so those chemicals, we're going to need
those chemicals at those sites too. So staff will be looking at that and what that's going
to take to budget for that. Okay. But again, it does seem that the demand has outstripped
the growth in population. So has something changed in the way we're treating the water?
Are we required to use more chemicals or achieve a higher level of quality or something along
those lines? Well, we do. We, right now we are, we participate in the total optimization
program from TCEQ. That requires us to meet certain turbidity standards. And we also have
achieved the Director's Award for the partnership, AWWA Partnership for Safe Drinking Water,
which requires we have better raw water treatment all the way through the filters and then out
to the system as well. So we do strive to have the best water, which I think we all
know that we're second best, at least last year. So we do strive to have a better quality
water than what's demanded by regular water quality standards.
Okay. So we have an increase in population and an increase in quality of our water.
That's correct. Okay. Those are good things to know. Thank you.
Yes. So the adjustment that we're asking for is a little over, I think it's 3.3 million.
We're going from a not to exceed from 13 to 42 to 16.5. That will get us through the end
of this fiscal year. Just checked with staff, we're at probably 99% of the contract spend
so far. The anticipation is after the first of the year, we're going to initiate drafting
a new contract with these forecasting methods put into place so we're not having to come
back and do these amendments. So in conclusion, staff's evaluated the usage,
the demand, the costs, and we're looking for a request for approval for this amendment
to the contract. Any questions? When we go to renegotiate, so we're going
to renegotiate the whole contract come the first year and are we going to just redo it
as five on top of the 2026 maturity or do we do it five from next year because the last
one was five years? Yeah. I'd have to talk to Lori about the contract.
Was it five year with two extensions or was it three with two?
Three with two. Okay. So it's three with two. That's something
we'll need to look at. I'm assuming we're pricing for multiple vendors
or the contract restricts us to just one vendor? No. There's multiple vendors that can bid
on those contract items. Okay. And the pricing is consistent across multiple
vendors? What I've seen, Lori, do you have any information
on that? The idea is to use the best value if we can and if that's not available, then
why do we use that? Yeah. When we re-solicit it, we'll probably
do a request for proposal. So we'll split it into sections like we did this last time
and we award per section to multiple vendors just so we always have someone that can supply
it. So price will be a part of it. Normally it's about 40%, sometimes up to 60%, depending
on what other evaluations we want to look at, like performance and service and stuff
like that. Sometimes it's low price, but sometimes it's overall best value for the city, but
we will award by section. So this contract, I think, had 10 different vendors, some in
primary positions, some in secondary positions, and we'll probably assume to do the same thing
next time. Thank you.
Yeah. Any further questions?
One final question. Sure.
The hypochlorite, that tremendous increase in cost, have y'all evaluated doing onsite
generation instead of purchasing it? We have not. It's something that we can look
into. Right now, at Ray Roberts, we were using chlorine gas, and the intent was to go away
from the gas production of that, and we've got a temporary bleach tank in there right
now. The Lake Lewisville had converted several years ago to liquid ammonium sulfate and sodium
hypochlorite, much safer for staff. So we will see an increase in cost just because
the liquid form is more expensive than the gas, for some reason now that it's shot up
to $2, almost $2 a gallon. But that's something we can look into, but definitely be evaluated.
Yeah. I know other groups throughout North Texas have moved to that because it's not
a hazardous material until you make the hazardous material onsite, so you don't need hazardous
shipping. You aren't calling a bunch of water. You're only, you know, you're delivering just
your salt. Correct.
Your machine turns, you know, adds the water and turns it into-
Yeah, I'd like to look at how safe it is for our staff onsite, because I know there are
some hazards associated with onsite generation as well.
Thank you. That is an excellent point, sir. Thank you.
I'd like to move approval of the item. Do we have a motion? Do we have a second?
All in favor say aye. All opposed? Same sign. A passes. Now on to D. Do we have a single
presentation for D, E, and F? That's correct. And Brandon Hamby is coming
up from DME. So we'll introduce items D, E, and F for the
presentation. Good morning. My name is Brandon Hamby. I'm
the leader and division manager for DME. Let me get this up.
And then, all right. That's not a keyboard. All right.
For today, we're going over the invitation for bid.
It's a renewal of the previous bid that we had, because the previous bid, we've run out
of money on a couple of vendors, kind of like they were talking about on the previous presentation.
Our bids are broken up into sections. And so we have the meter bid broken up into
several sections. And of those sections, two of our vendors have run out of allowable spend.
And so after consulting with our procurement department, it was decided to go ahead and
do a renewal of the whole bid because of two vendors being out of that spend.
So what we did is we went out and we did a new meter bid for the whole meter blanket.
So and that's kind of what we talked about here. Previous spend for section A, because
I think that's why Mr. Ryback had pulled this, was the questions about section A of the metering
section. So far, we had spent $4.9 million with that
section. But the total allowable spend for that section was $8 million.
So we hadn't spent that whole section of that one, but we have that there for just in case,
because we have, like I said, 8% growth. We've been adding about 3,000 electrometers
per year. And we also have a maintenance program where we have to change out all the meters
that need to be changed out because of our aging meter population from when we first
did our AMI system back in 2010. So we have some meters that are older and the electronics
are getting older and we're having to exchange some of those meters as well.
Overall our system overall, as of when I did this PowerPoint, we had 67,000 electric meters
in the city. Most of those are residential, about 63,000 of those. And on the AMI system,
we have 13 customers that have chosen the opt-out and do not do the AMI, which means
we have to manually read those every month. And then we have about 4,700 commercial meters.
The beta was broken up into five sections. And Techline was awarded section A for the
electric meters. Texas Electric Co-ops for sections B, C, and D for electric meter sockets.
Primary Instrument Rated Transformers and Primary Instrument Rated Transformers. And
then section E was Tray Networks Inc. for our AMI equipment.
I'm curious if you would go back. Where's the previous? Secure Mesh. Could you tell
us what that is? Yes, sir. There's different technologies for automated metering infrastructure.
And there's point to point. And then there's what they call Secure Mesh. And then they
have Powerline Carrier, PLC. Secure Mesh is radio. It's basically in the, it's going
to, all the meters are going to communicate via radio from the meter point to the extender
bridge, the collector we have, and then from the collector back to the gateway. And so,
and all the, all the passing of that information is encrypted. It's got 128 bit encryption
on it. And so that's why it's called Secure Mesh. So if anybody was to try to intercept
and try to get any of those transmissions, they would need our encryption key to get
the information inside. Okay. So we have 72,000, 73,000 total meters.
How many extender bridges do we have? We have 78 extender bridges in two games.
78? Yes, sir.
That's all? Yes, sir.
Wow. That's impressive. I would have thought it had been many hundreds.
We have 78. It is growing though, because the city is growing. So we will be looking
to add some more. But we generally try to keep about 2000 meters per extender bridge.
So that we have failover. All the extender bridges are set strategically. So if one was
to go down, the others in that area could pick up those meters. A total, an extender
bridge can run about 5,000 meters total on it. But we try to keep them around 2,000 so
that we have that failover. Just in case, like I said, whatever happens, we've had poles
crashed into or stuff happen where we've lost extender bridges, lightning. Lightning happens
a lot sometimes where we lose one. So if we lose one, in the meantime, the others can pull
in all those reeds and keep our system up and robust and going with that failover.
So what radio band are they working at? So the meters themselves are 2.4 gigahertz band.
And then the extender bridges run 5.8 gigahertz. And they're in the open band, where it's unlicensed.
Some AMI systems have licensed bands. And then you have to pay for that license. And
that's an ongoing fee to pay for that license. Ours is the unlicensed band. And that's the
encryption. Unlicensed, but encrypted? Yes. OK. Yes, sir. All right. So that's kind of
what comes to questions, which those are very good questions. And any other questions that
we have? Yes, sir. To this one or back? Just got it. Go towards the ending. OK, thank you.
There, breathe. OK. So you're asking then for an additional what? This is not additional.
This is to take the place of our current bid. OK. Our current bid, sections B, C, and D,
that vendor TEC, and then section E, the trend, those were out of spend. And so when they're
out of spend, the recommendation was to bring the whole bid back to have the whole thing
rebid again instead of just certain sections of it. And so we came-- we've come back about
a year earlier than what we were expecting to come back, just because we ran out of spend.
And part of that is just because the costs of prices keep going up. Every time that we
do an order, we'd end up having to do an amendment for pricing, because we go out for pricing,
which I do the order in the same app. Pricing has changed again. You all need to do an amendment.
And so we have these ongoing price raises happening over the last couple of years on
all this equipment. Thank you. And Mr. Rybeck, this is the annual amount. What you're considering
today is a five-year amount. So you get to multiply this times five, each of these times
five, to get to the contract amount. So take those numbers times five, you're saying--
Yeah, correct. If you look at the agenda, it's a five-year award. He's just showing
this on an annual basis. Thank you. Right. So we're looking at $10, $11, $12 million
roughly for the whole package? That'd be correct. OK. Over the five-year period? Over a five-year
period. And we try to build in some contingency there, because we've looked at historical
rising cost of prices and what the vendors have been coming back with because of manufacturers
gone up on prices. When we first started our bid that we are currently in back in 2021,
we look at the prices there to the prices now. And there's many products that have doubled
in price that are twice as much as what they were. And we're still-- So what are you projecting
here over the five-year period for pricing? We built a 5% increase per year. I thought
that that was modest, but we needed to account for something. Well, I guess in some cases,
they've already doubled, so how much more can they go up? I would hope not much more,
but we've yet to see them level out. Oh, really? Every time that we've gone back in every order,
even in this last year, prices have continued to rise. So we're hoping that levels out.
We've not seen this before the pandemic, 2020, of how this dramatic a price increases. I've
been here 24 years. I've never seen prices increases like this, but it certainly ran
our contracts out of money quickly. OK, so it's potentially going to be required for
you to come back and ask for additional increases on this contract, pending additional price
increases in equipment and material. We've tried to build a contingency in there for
that, and we hope that that can cover that. But if it doesn't, then, yes, we would be
back for that. Yeah, Mr. Rybak, unlike what you heard the Water Department say, we continue
to see prices across the electric industry continue to escalate. And so we've not seen
any kind of flattening. It just continues to just build up across the entire equipment
system that we have. Well, I can appreciate that. Our food bills
up about 50 percent over two years ago. I looked at the national average between 2020
and 2024 just on inflation, and it's 20 percent in the last several years. Just on that, I
think 2021 was 4 point something, 2022 is 8 percent something, and then 2023 was 8.
And then this year is 2.6 or something like that. So we're not over that. The last quarter,
it was at 2.6 on inflation. So national inflation, we've gone up about 20 percent since our previous
contract till now. Unfortunate, but true. Thank you.
Yes, sir. Historically, and there were a number of
debt and bids in this, are debt and firms able to even compete on this stuff? Have we
been able to engage with them? In this case, we didn't get any in this one, but just for
my background knowledge. I talk about competing for the products.
With electric metering, there's usually only a handful of, say, meter manufacturers. There's
only about five in the whole United States. And then to find the ones that actually work
with our AMI system module, we're down to two out of those five. As far as other equipment
like the current transformers, potential transformers, there's also a limited number of manufacturers
to those in the United States. So a lot of this equipment, there's just a handful of
manufacturers that kind of hold the whole industry, and you're kind of limited to working
with those manufacturers and the distributors for those manufacturers.
But we would welcome more competition if someone was to bring it, because that would certainly
help with the pricing, if they had some more competition than what they have.
Mr. Chairman. So you've had a 5% increase, hoping that that would cover it. It looks
like it's not going to. Is it your thought that next year, when we start this again,
you feel comfortable with the 5% knowing that you'd possibly be coming back to us with more
alterations, or are you thinking about going to a higher number than the 5% for protection?
I think in the current contract that we're in, we didn't have that, the current meter
bid that we ran out of money. And so we tried to build that into this one so that we would
have that and in the hopes that it would be enough to cover that. And like I said, all
we can do is project and go off of our best projection without looking to the future.
It's unknown, but we just look at our historicals and try to go off of what we've seen in the
last couple of years. But also knowing the last couple of years is a departure from what
everything was before those years as far as pricing and hoping that we will level out
at some point. That's the hope that these prices don't continue, hoping there's going
to be a leveling. And if it will level out in price and kind of hold a closer price,
then yes, this money will be enough.
So you feel comfortable with going with this procedure and then possibly seeing us more
often than we've seen you before just because of the market?
That could be possible. I'd be comfortable coming back and talking to you.
Well, I'm just saying, right back and made that come in. I have no problem with it. It's
good to see you. Just curious.
Well, Mr. Rainer, that's one of the reasons why we do an initial three-year contract.
If we see prices escalate too much, if we see more demand than we anticipated that we
think might be worthwhile, us going out for rebid, we can do that after the additional
term of three years. Yes, sir.
Commissioner Ruddick.
Yes. I was wondering, so we're committed to this Trillion Network, obviously, for this
data gathering. So really don't have much leverage over them in terms of seeking another
vendor or competition for that.
Right. They kind of have a monopoly on their equipment and then the modules that go in
the meters for that equipment.
Have their rate increases been a little more moderate?
Yours has not been all that bad in the pricing. When I looked at theirs, actually their price
increases have been only about 3% per year and stuff like that. And so it hasn't been
as high a jumps as we've seen, particularly with meter basis and current transformers
and potential transformers. That's where we saw the biggest increases where things are
double in price from where our current contract is to the proposal of this one.
Mr. Ruddick, the AMI system is something that DME implemented, what, 10 years ago, 20 years
ago now, I guess.
Starting 2010 is a five-year rollout. We completed it. It had 100% complete in 2015.
So we do have in our CIP out in the out years $40 million to look at a new AMI system. We
continue to push that out because the system is doing what we need it to do. But at some
point, we probably need to look at just refreshing that and maybe looking at another system because
there have been technology improvements. The water department is currently looking and
implementing AMI as well. So there might be some opportunities there for us to leverage
with them. But again, I think right now the cheaper route is to continue to keep the system
that we have. It's doing the work that we need it to do and postpone that $40 million.
As long as their rate increases have been more normal and acceptable. Some of the rate
increases we saw with the chemicals, it was eight times in one year. That's big. Anyway,
I don't have anything else. Thank you.
Any further questions? We'll consider these items individually. I would take a motion
for item D. So moved. Mr. Ryback moves. Second. Anybody? Mr. Plotk seconds. All in favor?
All are. The vote is unanimous for item E. I would consider a motion. Second. Motion
is second. All in favor? Unanimously again. And for item E, a motion? I'm sorry. Item
F. You're right. Who's the motion? I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Commissioner Plotk, second. All
in favor? Also passes unanimously. Moving on to items for individual consideration. Item
A, consider approval of the November 18, 2024 minutes. Is there a motion? Commissioner Newquist
and second by Ryback. All in favor? All are. Passes. And item B, consider adoption of an
ordinance from the city of Denton authorizing city manager to execute a CMAR guaranteed
maximum price contract, price amendment number three to CMAR contract with Sunt Construction
for let's see, construction phase services of the third work package for neighborhood
two and six improvements. Good morning board members. Scott Feddick, senior project manager
with capital projects. As you stated here this morning for consideration for an amendment
to the contract for neighborhood two and six for GMP three or guaranteed maximum price
number three. Neighborhood two and six is part of the 2019 bond program. So a little
bit about two and six project. The area that we're taking place for three you can see on
the map is indicated by the dotted black line. This overall project takes place primarily
in the southwest quadrant of the city of Denton. Some of the major streets with package three
will be Sunset, Cordell, Congress and Scripture. With this project we'll be doing 49 roadway
segments for reconstruction. There's about 11,000 feet of water main replacements, 8,300
feet of wastewater replacement, about 3,000 square yards of sidewalk replacement and then
we'll also be looking at doing some sidewalk lighting and installation. So the GMP three
overall cost, cost of work was just over 21 million. We had the contingencies for owner
and Seymour with allowances. Total contract amount was 28 million, 145, 415 cents. Kind
of a little bit about the... Could you go back please? Yes sir. What is the CMR's contingency?
So that is, that is an allowance that allows them to use money that is for items that come
up within the project that are related to the project. So just for a simple example,
when we're working in the UNT area, we started noticing that students are trying to get into
the construction area. We didn't perceive that so they needed to get some fencing to
put up and UNT requested fencing so we allowed them to use that contingency to go out and
rent some chain link fencing and areas to protect the students in the project area.
So things like that that benefit the project. Okay so are allowances then from previous
risk contingency expenditures? Yeah so allowances, yeah so when we, we look at what the risk
may be so just for example like say mailboxes, a bunch of mailboxes along the side of a street
that we could possibly damage as we go down through there but we don't know that we're
going to for sure. So we put that in an allowance so if that would happen, we have individual
lines that could use that money to fix that mailbox and if we don't use any of it, that
money all reverts back to the city. That allows us to bring that money back versus have a
line item that would get paid out in full for something we may or may not do. Okay so
if you'll excuse me just working through this, so the construction fee is not the same as
the general condition so the general contractor is being paid for their general conditions,
the construction fee goes to the CMR? Yes so it's, yeah it's a figure on the total cost
of the project and then yes and then anything that's not used for that percentage would
also revert back to the city and then the project for the construction fee. Okay thank
you. Mr. Chair, so if I understand on the contingency that would let's say the chain
link fence as you mentioned, but the mailboxes fall under the allowances? Right, right. It
is a risk that we identified, you know the allowances are risks that we identified during
the project design. So as you're aware with the CMR, we bring on the CMR design firm and
we all do it together. So constructability they're looking at, well this is a possibility
we might have to do this or you know sweeping or whatever you know that we may or may not
have to do is added as an allowance versus a solid bid on that line on them. So an event
like the chain link fence just caught everybody by surprise because of the clientele in the
neighborhood? Right that wasn't really expected. Students or students? Right, wasn't really
expected so that is a way allowed to use contingency. Thank you for that. Mr. Chair, concerning
the contingency what you said the word we permit them to access the contingency, is
there a comeback process to us to where they're telling us hey we're going or do they have
some unilateral discretion to go ahead and access it? How does that work? How do we know
when they're tapping that? Yes, so we are required to let us know what they're going
to use it for, vet out, give us cost, they provide the cost estimates and everything
to us and then we say okay yeah we agree this is a valid use of contingency. Good. All right
so a little bit about our project schedule. Like I said this is the third and final GMP
for this project. GMP number one we started construction in November of 23, sorry December
of 23. GMP number two we started construction in May of 24. We are with an approval here
we're going to go to council on the 17th and with that if we get an approval we would start
GMP construction probably sometime in January quarter one of 2025. Overall project we are
expecting a total completion of the project in quarter four of 2026. So will that be the
complete expenditure then of the 2019 bond? Will that complete it? We'll not complete
the bond just this project. Okay and how much more of the bond is left to be executed? So
we do have a few more projects left. There's the neighborhood 5A project, we've got the
neighborhood 5B and also the Oakland drainage is part of that project. There's a still in
in progress the neighborhood four project. We have a few projects that were associated
with it that we have on hold right now with funding and they may get pushed but so majority
of it we're getting there so we're getting the majority of it is under construction or
in design. Okay so that 2019 bond when do we more or less anticipate that those projects
will be completed? I think with the Oakland 5B Seth you may have to help me this is 28
27 I know for sure into 27 28 for that project. I just want to get a general idea. Okay with
that staff recommendation would be an amendment to the contract with Sunt Construction for
the GMP number three total not to exceed amount of $28,145,400.15 that does include the owners
contingency of one million dollars. And any additional questions? Any further questions?
Or a motion? Mr. Ryback moves second. Nucleus seconds. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None.
Motion B passes. Now we'll move to item C. Consider recommending adoption of an ordinance
to the city of Denton authorizing the city manager to execute a contact with Tiseo Paving
for construction of Bonnie Bray phase six improvement project for a total amount not
to exceed $38,688,093.66. Good morning public utility board members my name is Jesus Perez
I'm a project manager with capital projects and I'll be introducing the Bonnie Bray phase
six improvement project to you and the utilities that we will construct within its project
limits. On Bonnie Bray the scope will be to widen to a four-lane divided roadway from
University Drive all the way to Elm Street and within those project limits there will
be a total of 2,600 linear feet of new water mains and also a total of 11,600 linear feet
of new stormwater mains. On the scope on Rainey Road of course it would be to widen it to
three lane a three lane roadway meaning there will be a turn lane in between from the Bonnie
Bray intersection and Rainey Road to about 120 feet west of the Hardaway Road intersection.
Within those project limits we will install about a thousand linear feet of new water
mains and also a total of 800 feet of stormwater upgrades. The bid opening for this project
was conducted on August 28th 2024. At the time there was only two bids that were received
and opened by procurement. The lowest bidder at the time it was from Tizio Paving Company.
All the bids and supporting documentation was collected by procurement and then sent
to the Texas Department of Transportation for their approval. Once we received approval
we had the go ahead to move towards construction. The base bid submitted by Tizio Paving at
that time was for $36,845,803.49. The funding sources for this project are coming from a
couple of different sources. The first one being the 2019 General Obligation Fund. There
is some Federal Highway Administration funding and there is Denton ISD funding that's coming
through an ILA, Interlocal Agreement between the City and the school for the Riney Road
segment. The upcoming schedule for the project of course will be to go before City Council
on December 17th to recommend award to the contractor. Shortly thereafter we will issue
a partial notice to proceed for the contractor to start ordering materials with a lot of
lead time. Once we are in January the City will issue the full notice to proceed to the
contractor so he can begin full mobilization into the areas that we need them to. What
I mean by that is that we have built in milestones into the project manual. There's three key
milestones that he must meet time frame so that time is of the essence. The contractor
asked for the total project, the contractor will have a total of two and a half years
to complete. I have a couple of quick questions. The contractor that we plan to award to Tizio
Paving does the City have any experience working with them? No sir. Asking around with my project
manager team, I have not had any experience with them and neither has my team. The only
person that I met that has had previous experience with Tizio Paving was the public works inspector
supervisor and he's dealt with them so I guess we will all have our first experience
with them. Okay well I'm curious because their bid was significantly lower than the other
bidder. About 30 something percent. It's always a little scary. It's good for the taxpayer
but it could be scary for performance. And the other thing I was wondering, you mentioned
Riley Road. I didn't see that on the map that you showed us. Did I miss it? It's a very
short segment. It's where the drive in theater used to be. I'll have to take your word for
that. That's where I saw Rambo. Oh there it is. Right there. That little, right by the
high school. Well the new elementary school. Like I said earlier the interlocal agreement
is basically the agreement between the City and Denton ISD to construct Rainey Road. So
right in front of the new elementary school frontage it goes actually from three lanes
to four lanes. So the project kind of builds a deceleration lane into their first driveway.
So that's where I talk about that is the little section of Rainey Road that we are constructing.
Okay so it's just that little leg that's why I missed it. Thank you. Mr. Chair a couple
of questions. To dovetail Mr. Rayback on were both of these companies, are they, so one
is not on our LSER approved list per se. This is a brand new venture with him. What about
Ed Bell? Are they in our primary, secondary, are they on the list? Where are they? I've
only been here with the City of Denton for two years and in the Metroplex so I have no
experience with contractors that would submit their bids so I have also no information for
Ed Bell construction but I'll let Seth. Good morning board members. Seth Garcia, Deputy
Director of Cal4Project. So both are very well qualified contractors. They do a lot
of work in the Metroplex. As work shrinking in the Metroplex we're seeing some of them
continue to come north as we're continuing to put out projects. Mr. Rayback to your point
I think Ed Bell's construction number is actually high and what we had the OPC was closer to
Tizio Paving so really we were within I think less than a percent of our engineers estimate
for Tizio's number. Those FHWA funds that we have received for this project put additional
stipulations on the contractors that we think weeded out some of the bids that we would
normally receive from some of our normal players so again getting two on a project this size
and complexity we felt comfortable with these numbers. So if I may ask then on another point
on the Denton ISD and the federal housing funding housing highway pardon me no my occupation
are those costs include are those included in this? Yes sir so part of let me switch
over to his funding. I'm just looking are we getting a little relief from those? Absolutely
so I believe so it's gonna be more than the 36. The contract amount is correct the city
's portion of that contract amount is what is less so from Denton ISD I believe we got
a little over 1.5 million to build their portion of Riney Road again the L.A. calls for a true
up process so once we actually receive bids we'll true up against the number that they
fronted us to make sure they're covering all portions of costs and anything that they go
over for their portion they will reimburse back to the city. The FHWA funds was a little
over 9 million dollars for construction and total we had 11.9 million so add those together
the city's portions roughly 25 million. That helps a lot. Absolutely sorry we didn't break
that down a little bit clearer. Thank you. Question please. Go ahead. When that FHA money
that federal highway when does that come is that on progress are they in first and we're
in last how's that work? Yep so it's reimbursable the 2 million of that came through right away
so again once we procure and issue the funds we show we submit it to our transportation
consultant who provides it to TxDOT the local area office reviews it it goes to Austin for
final approval and then we receive reimbursement back. So essentially we'll use a portion of
the 25 million we have set into the project to front the money and then we'll do reimbursements
on a monthly basis as we go through. Any further questions? Thank you sir. So this project is
adjacent to the Denton High School which has a couple of thousand cars a day entering and
leaving and then it's also next to the new elementary school. Is the new elementary school
being constructed? It's in the same alignment Bronco West of the intersection of Rainey
Road and Bronco Way. You go on Bronco Way to the high school and then if you go east
of the intersection you will be arriving at the new elementary school that is to open
on August 20 August 2025. Okay so there there is a lot of traffic like very heavy daily
traffic to consider here. I'm assuming there's there's a phasing plan that allows all of
that traffic to to flow without creating. Yes and that's what I spoke earlier about
the milestones that were built into the project the project manual. So the intersection of
Rainey Road and Bonnie Bray in essence becomes the most important the most critical intersection.
So there will be a temporary asphalt pavement built on the west side of the intersection.
So as that is being built the traffic that is approaching the intersection will be allowed
to go westbound eastbound and still northbound. They'll still have the same way of the same
pattern as we built this temporary asphalt pavement around it. So once the temporary
asphalt pavement is ready we'll flip the traffic and now the traffic will now be on the temporary
pavement going around the intersection and the contractor will fully close the intersection
and completely tear tear up and start rebuilding the road and into a much wider because Rainey
Road will be a traffic controlled light intersection. I'm glad to hear I was afraid it was going
to be a four-way stop sign. All right thank you. Yes let me so I think this is the slide
that I was in. So the staff recommendation would be to authorize the construction contract
with Tizio Paving both for the base bid and the owner's contingency of five percent. So
the total contract notice not to exceed amount will be thirty eight million six hundred and
eighty eight thousand and ninety three dollars and sixty six cents. And any open up for any
further questions that you might have any further questions. It's one last school related
question are there sidewalks in the plan along Bonnie Bray and Rainey Road. Yes the the whole
length of Bonnie Bray there we have plans to widen to the eight foot walking path. I
on both sides I believe and Rainey Road also on Rainey Road on the south side of running
road going to the intersection also gets a eight foot walking path. Thank you. Yeah can
you go back to the time frame. There are no further questions. Chair would entertain a
motion to move. We have a motion. Second. All in favor. Any opposed. Motion carries
unanimously on to management reports Mr. Chair. We have a couple of items that we've provided
to you as follow ups. There was a memo on customer distribution for DMA. I think Mr.
Taylor had requested that there was also a follow up memo to a question that Mr. Ryback
had and we have staff here. If there's any questions you have on either those memos questions
first. Oh yeah so I appreciate the information and I noticed the categories were residential
commercial industrial. I assume industrial is just the size of peak load or size of demand.
That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Yes I have a question about the memo. I'm sorry go ahead.
What is a miscellaneous account in the pie chart. Let me ask Melissa to get up here and
give you that answer. Good morning members. My name is Melissa with DME. Miscellaneous
is essentially broken up between lighting and then we also have like the temporary service
meters as well. It's just a break up of those. Any other questions on that one. Thank you.
Yes I'm the one who requested the information regarding the filter repairs at Lewisville
plant and I noticed that there was no start date as to when that occurred and was start
date for the water restrictions. Is anybody from the water department here who can. Yeah
I don't see anybody from the water department here. I do apologize for that. But I'll go
ahead and take your question and we'll get get a response back to you on that. The reason
for my asking is when we were first reported to us this failure had occurred and there
was a repair of the contractor who was doing that work was going to be kept on site and
the whole thing would be wrapped up in a couple of weeks. Well it doesn't look like it was
a couple of weeks. So maybe we need to know more about why it took longer to take place.
Yeah we'll get with with Stephen and Chris Carroll to get your response on that. Appreciate
that. Thank you. Yeah so the only other items that we have on here. So today's the final
meeting of 2024. Your next meeting scheduled for January 13th and we'll try to populate
that calendar for you. But shortly after the beginning of the year we begin the budget
process and we'll be back in the whole process for all the utilities and look forward to
having conversations with you about about the next year's budget. So with that happy
answer any other questions you may have. Okay seeing no more questions chair would entertain
a motion to adjourn. We are adjourned.