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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTranscript 05/09/2002 HEADRICK: It ties in, it dovetails with the report found on page 167 from Mr. Cutler and Mr. Connelly. Before I get too far into this, I want to thank Mr. Cutler, Mr. Connelly, and Mr. Quinn for their support and cooperation in moving this along. The report would indicate that its appropriate to develop three different programs or divide this into three different sections, the first section being the Rayonier property; the second section being the property east of Rayonier where we've planned, applied for some grant money to pave that area. We're running into some problems there, one on certifying the right-of-way; and then the third section is beyond the section immediately east of Rayonier, down closer to Morse Creek; down there we have right-of-way through there, but we need to put up a fence. It's my suggestion that at this point we only focus on section one, or phase one - that's the Rayonier property - because we get through the Rayonier property, basically we've got a trail at least all the way to Morse Creek and beyond there, there's currently a gap between Port Angeles and Sequim where they have to go under the highway for a short period. I `ve had a number of meetings with Mr. Connelly, Jim Mahlum, Mr. Cutler; we've disagreed and agreed on a lot of different things, and I've been a little pushy, but I think we've got something in place—at least a tentative schedule—so we can get to construction sometime after the middle of July and into August, assuming that we keep moving along. Part of this requires that we do some in-house planning; we need to, in order to bid this out, we have to go to contractors because it's too much for us to handle in house. That requires that we do a plan indicating what the conditions would be so that anybody bidding on this, and we can go to our unlimited contracts, or list, so we don't have to take a lot of time, but that's going to take a couple of weeks. Mr. Mahlum has advised me today that, assuming that it's all right with Mr. Cutler, that he should be able to get some specifications together that we can get to potential contractors within the next two weeks; it takes them two weeks to respond, then it needs to come back to the Council for their final approval. At this point, the Public Works has indicated, and Mr. Connelly has been involved mostly, well, Parks and Recreations been involved, too, because they had one of their men out there measuring and determining the cost for fence and Mr. Mahlum has been out there for Public Works on the Trail construction that need to be done, so it's a joint effort between those two departments. But in any case, we have a good ideas of what the cost is going to be; we've lined up an engineer to give us some specifications for the bridge, the crossing and the footings that are necessary through there; we need to have him certify the bridge to make sure that it's safe for people to go across—that's all part of the $80,000 cost that's projected by this report. At this point, it would be my request that we approve the $80,000 and approve this program as presently laid out and then get this trail opened by at least the first of August. It's going to miss some events, but it's better than later. I don't want to tie this into phase two and three because they can hold us up until next year - or phase two could anyway. So we need to focus on phase one through the Rayonier property and then keep it moving. MAYOR: This $80,000 —where does that come from? HEADRICK: Well, it's gonna have to come out of general funds, or out of reserves; we do have $400,000 that was left over from last year that's kind of handing in limbo that we're going to have to decide at some future point, probably in June when we start talking about capital projects, where that's going to go—theoretically, that's going to come out of there. ROGERS: So do we have a schedule of when we know we can actually cross the Rayonier property? HEADRICK: Well, what we worked out today was an optimistic mood of what could occur, assuming we don't have things develop in the interim. We could get the specifications or the design work done in house. It's possible to go outhouse....that term was used today, too...it's possible to out of house and hire someone. Mr. Zenovic was contacted regarding his participation in this design plan and the figure varied somewhere between 8 and 14 thousand dollars for that, in part because he was going to be real detailed and probably take more than two weeks to do it. But the question was raised, and apparently, in talking with Mr. Mahlum today, Public Works does do some of their own in-house design work, or plan work-particularly when it involves money from our general fund as opposed to matching funds. If we've got matching funds, it's a lot easier to hire a consultant to give us some specifications because we're only paying a percentage of that. It's better that we leverage our money by using the money that we have with grants, but if we're going to use our own money, in-house participation is probably more prudent in terms of getting the most for our money. We would plan, and one of the things discussed today would be to bring this back to the Council in two weeks for a report, and then in four weeks for a report, and keep you advised of where we are and what's happening and if we're on track, so that we can get this open. Part of the problem is once we get to a contractor, the contractor then has to have a window of opportunity to do the work; they can't just drop what they're doing and get in there and do it. So we want to get this design work done as soon as possible; we want to get it to the contractor as soon as possible, so that the contractor can get down there and do the work. About 80 percent of the property down there is already covered; we're only talking about covering the other 20 percent in with some gravel and we're talking also about putting down a cloth, or an impermeable surface, underneath the gravel—that was something that—a concern that Mr. Collins had raised before as to whether or not we needed asphalt, chip seal, or something down there. When I went through with Mr. Anderson, Jack Anderson, he said he didn't want asphalt down there and didn't want chip seal; he probably he perceived that as additional cleanup he'd have to do at some point, go in there and put some more things down. He suggested he use this cloth or impermeable surface. Mr. Mahlum was apparently intimately familiar with that process; he knew what he was talking about, he'd used it before on other trails. The trail costs are going to be about $50,000—that includes the design work for the bridge, and the fencing was going to be about $30,000. There was some discussion about trying to get the thirty thousand out of the grant money. There's differences of opinion as to whether we can or not; but whether we can or not, I don't want to tie it in to the grant, because the grant may not be approved this year. That could put us way behind. And if we don't spend the money out of the grant, the $30,000, if we didn't use $30,000 out of the grant for fencing, we can use that money for paving. So we're not going to lose the money at a later point. CAMPBELL: So, we're committing $80,000 from the reserves which will reduce our reserves by that amount. HEADRICK: Yes. QUINN: In essence, if the Council would go along, of course our plan originally was to bring the CFP to the Council in June, and I think the finance committee is already wrestled a little bit with some of this, but in any case, if you make a decision tonight to expend $80,000, that's just $80,000 less that we would have to reallocate or change priorities during the CFP. There's also other projects that we're tracking currently that appear to where we may have to shift some other monies around or make some other priorities in order to balance the CFP projects, because we have other items that have come up that have become un-budgeted this year, or we've incurred overruns in the cost of the projects. When we hit this section, probably in June for the CFP review, bear in mind that you may not be able to accomplish all the projects that you thought you were going accomplish because of these changes. But you certainly have that flexibility to make that adjustment. MAYOR: I can't think of another thing in the City that the people want more this thing. ROGERS: Yes, there was a letter in our box this week regarding a request for a one-time use for the Trail... MAYOR: That's that July group of 80 bikers... QUINN: There's two reasons...that was the bicycle group that was going to come in July. Two problems with that: one, I don't think that physically we'll have all of that work done. But even if we could open up the trail, the second problem that we've recently found out is that this bicycle group was unaware that the trail is not totally not hard surfaced. Some of the bicycle riders do not have essentially trail bikes, or bikes that you would take off the hard surface. MAYOR: So that wouldn't work for those folks... QUINN: It certainly wouldn't for those that would have just street bikes. ROGERS: And we can't do any of this work until the months of August and September because of the waterfront construction...is there any leeway on that at all? CUTLER: There might be some flexibility; we're anticipating for permit purposes which state agencies would be restricted to that time frame, it will still take us some time to put the plans and specs together for the rest of this month and then a little bidding process, and then contractor mobilizing, so that would be about the right time frame; it might be moved up a little bit—we haven't gotten a firm commitment from the permit agencies.