Woodward, Okla. —

In addition to addressing issues surrounding the West Woodward Airport and Kid's Inc., Woodward City Commissioners also took action on the downtown Streetscape project during their regular meeting on Monday, Aug. 20.

See related story "City issues respone to FAA report"

See related story "Commissioners, Kid's Inc. discuss issues"

Assistant City Manager Doug Haines told the commissioners he was "happy to report that we have received approval, after many years finally we've gotten approval from ODOT (Oklahoma Department of Transportation)" to proceed with the renovation of downtown Main Street through the Streetscape project.

However, Haines said that one of the requirements from ODOT is that the city have a resident engineer supervising the project and serving as a liaison between the city and the project architect and contractor.

Because of this, he said the city advertised a request for proposals from engineering firms, but only received one response, from Cardinal Engineering.

A committee of city staff members then met with Cardinal representatives to conduct a review of the engineering firm and make sure Cardinal had enough experience to oversee the project, Haines said.  

Based on the recommendation from that committee, he said the city entered into negotiations with Cardinal Engineering on the project fee, which after some "back and forth" was agreed on at a fixed fee of $75,000 for the 180 calendar days alloted for the contract.  If the project exceeds those 180 days, the contract states Cardinal will charge the city an hourly rate of $75 for the resident engineer/inspector's services for each additional day of inspection.

Haines noted that this fee was not only agreed upon by both the city and Cardinal Engineering, but "also had to be approved by ODOT."

After Haines finished explaining how Cardinal came to be recommended, the city commissioners approved hiring the firm to provide a resident engineer for the streetscape project.

According to the scope of services approved with the contract, the resident engineer from Cardinal will perform several duties throughout the Streetscape project.  These duties include to be on-site observing the construction of the project, to provide daily inspection reports, to attend project meetings, and to advise the architect regarding acceptability of work quality, progress of work and interpretation of plans.

Later in his report to the commission, City Manager Alan Riffel announced another milestone in the Streetscape project as he reported "that the Streetscape project is to the point were it can soon go out for bids."

Riffel said a construction schedule for the Main Street improvement project will be determined once those bids have been received.



OTHER ACTION

In other business Monday, Aug. 20, city commissioners approved an "on-call" civil engineering service agreement with Cardinal Engineering.

Under this separate agreement, Cardinal would be able "to go out and perform miscellaneous duties without having to come back to the commission each and every time for a contract," Haines said.

Instead, he said, "They bill us off their hourly rates based on what we need them to do."

According to Cardinal's "scope of services," those hourly rates range from $45 an hour for clerical services to $100 or more an hour for land surveyors, geologists, professional engineers and GIS consultants.

Haines said the city previously had a similar agreement with Myers Engineering.  Riffel later told The News that the reason for the switch was because Myers Engineering relocated out of Woodward and Cardinal Engineering came in.

He added that while the firm changed, the city's actual engineer hasn't because when Myers left, engineer Rick Schlegel remained in Woodward and now works for Cardinal.

City commissioners also approved the expenditure of over $250,000 through 2 change orders and an equipment bid.  The following is a breakdown of those expenditures:

• Change Order No. 1 from AAA Landscaping, Inc. in the amount of $1,500 for the addition of a drip irrigation system at the north trees at the Woodward Conference Center;

• a $171,990 bid from Frontier Equipment for a new 2013 Schwarze A-7000 street sweeper on an International chassis, which includes a 5-year warranty;

• Change Order No. 1 from Circle S. Paving Company, Inc. relative to repairs on Madison Ave. for an increase of $87,520.55 after it was determined that the existing road base on Madison between 15th and 18th Streets was not enough to handle the traffic load.  The extra expense covered the cost of milling up the old base, laying a new base and redoing the overlay.