The Finance Committee met 10/10/2022 and voted on a number of projects. Although staff was not requesting that they reject multiple bids as they did back on 08/22/2022 and again for the Library Project bids, there were still a couple projects that were indicative of the current economic situation in the US.
One item was a request to reject a bid for the 2022 Appleton Waste Water Treatment Plant Blended Sludge Piping and Preliminary Heat Exchanger Replacement Project. Director of Utilities Chris Shaw told the committee that steel prices were still up. They were hoping that because the equipment for the project was 95% steel piping that the price would come down and the city could rebid it. He noted that the project could be delayed by up to a year. Doing so was not ideal but it could be done.
The other project that prompted comment from staff was the request to aware a contract for the 2022 Telulah Pavilion Repairs project.
Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza told the committee that this project was a rebid. [This project had been one of the items the Finance Committee had rejected on 08/22/2022.] Unfortunately, the scope of the project had to be reduced in order to get it within budget, but staff wanted to move forward with the repairs, especially on a smaller pavilion where those repairs were most needed. At a later date, they would go back to do the other work.
One item that was not necessarily indicative of the current state of the economy was the request to aware the 2022 Appleton Waste Water Treatment Plan Painting Project. As Director Gazza told the committee, painting the Waste Water Treatment Plan was like painting a ship. “When you get done, you got to start over.” So if anyone had seen other painting contracts out there, that was why.
Another item before the Committee was a 2022 budget amendment moving $27,302 from the Public Works Capital Project Fund to the Facilities capital Project Fund. The reason for this change was that the Public Works Department had a sidewalk project scheduled for Appleton Street near the library, but it would not make sense to install a new sidewalk only for it to be removed when construction on the Library Project. To deal with that, they wanted to transfer the money for that project from the Public Works Capital Project Fund to the Facilities Capital Project Fund so that the sidewalk could be replaced as part of the Library Project.
There was also a request to award the 2022 AWWTP Biogas Boiler System Upgrades
Project contract which did not garner any explanation, comment, or discussion.
After unanimously approving all of the action item on the agenda, the committee moved on to the information items. These consisted of some contract change orders and some budget amendments, none of which prompted any elaboration by staff or questions from the committee members.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=994063&GUID=1123F8B4-67BC-4073-91CA-D24CA5B60E2A
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