RESOLUTION NO. (XX)
RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF COTATI APPROVING THE
PURCHASE OF TWO FIXED DIESEL GENERATORS AND CONSTRUCTION
CONTRACTS FOR INSTALLATION OF THE GENERATORS AND INTEGRATION INTO THE CITY’S WATER SCADA SYSTEM.
WHEREAS, the City has four sewer lift stations, all without backup generator power, and during power outages, Public Works staff must take its two towable generators to these sites to keep the pumps running; and
WHEREAS, the Quail Hollow and New Century subdivisions are served by two of these sewer lift stations, and, since the construction of the subdivisions (New Century in 1984 and Quail Hollow in 1988) until 2018, the City used one towable generator for all four sites, then, in 2018, in the aftermath of the Tubbs fire, the City augmented its one towable generator with a second towable generator; and
WHEREAS, power outages have become more frequent since the Tubs Fire, and, in 2019, the City placed a rental generator at the Quail Hollow site and that generator has been rented monthly continuously since then; and
WHEREAS, in 2018, the City applied for emergency grant funds from FEMA to purchase and install generators but the application was not approved, and the City now has the opportunity to install a fixed generator at each of the Quail Hollow (Myrtle Avenue, between Keppel and Hahn) and New Century (Eagle Drive at the Pocket Park pathway) lift station sites and greatly improve the reliability and resilience to responding to power outages; and WHEREAS, the City has four sewer lift stations as follows: one on the West side of the freeway named Redwood Drive, and three on the North/East of the Freeway named Quail Hollow, New Century and Benson Lane, and, during power outages, a Public Works staff person must manage the sewage depth in each of the four sewer lift station wet wells (the sewage flows into a wet well until it rises to a certain level before triggering the pump to come on) and prevent raw sewage from overflowing into the neighboring areas; and WHEREAS, at present, this is accomplished with one rental generator at Quail Hollow and the City’s two towable generators, and, since there are four lift stations, a towable generator is rotated between two geographically separated lift stations, and the capacity of the wet wells makes this possible, but it requires constant monitoring during the power outage; and WHEREAS, fixed generators are the industry norm for sewer lift stations and have advantages of operating automatically without staff intervention when an outage occurs, and, therefore, the City has had a design prepared and has received proposals to install fixed generators at two of its four lift stations; and
WHEREAS, the design includes the feature of having power automatically switching from PGE to generator power and the generator is signaled to turn on, and, once on, the lift station operates normally being controlled by the local controller or “PLC” which reacts to instruments indicating the sewage level in the wet well and proper operation of the pumps; and WHEREAS, the Quail Hollow and New Century lift stations can accommodate fixed generators because they have space on their sites for a generator and these lift stations cycle more frequently; and
WHEREAS, a quote was requested of O’Rourke Electric for the Quail Hollow Lift Station, and O’Rourke was asked to select and purchase the generator then install the conduit, instrumentation and automatic transfer switch; and
WHEREAS, because of favorable pricing, Staff then asked O’Rourke for another quote for the New Century Lift Station; and
WHEREAS, Tesco was also approached to provide a quote to integrate the new fixed generators to the City’s SCADA system, and SCADA would display information including the status of PGE power, the pump status (on/off), and the run status of the generator, and the information would be accessed remotely by the system Operator; and WHEREAS, the City received the separate quotes from O’Rourke Electric and finds them to be fair and reasonable and recommends both quotes for approval; and WHEREAS, the City included purchasing the fixed generators in its Capital Improvement Program as unfunded level B efforts for FY26/27 with a cost of $180,000, and the proposed costs are as follows:
Quail Hollow Quote $74,950
New Century Quote $72,350
Building Permit Fees $4,780
Fence at New Century $8,160
Tesco Integration $20,000
Contingency $15,000
Total $195,240
; and
WHEREAS, the City’s Reserve Fund, held by the City of Santa Rosa acting in accordance with the Subregional Wastewater Treatment Agreement, has grown to $300,292.01, and the City has requested $250,000 be returned; and
WHEREAS, the City’s FY25/26 - FY26/27 Budget does not account for these funds, and because of the critical nature of this project, Staff is recommending using much of these funds for fixed generators at these sites; and
WHEREAS, the returned reserve funds are to be provided to the City as a deduction from its sewer bills, therefore, Sewer Enterprise unappropriated fund balance would be preserved and would reflect an increased by the unused amount by the fixed generators; and WHEREAS, this action is found to qualify for a Class 1 Categorical Exemption under CEQA Section 15301 in that the project consists of the operation, repair, maintenance, permitting, leasing, licensing, or minor alteration of existing public or private structures, facilities, mechanical equipment, or topographical features, involving negligible or no expansion of the existing or former use.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the City Council of the City of Cotati determines the following:
1. The recitals above are true and correct, and
2. The use of $195,240 from the Santa Rosa Subregional Wastewater reserve fund for the City of Cotati is approved for use for the fixed generator contracts, and
3. The separate agreements with O’Rourke Electric for providing and installing fixed generators at the Quail Hollow and New Century Sewer Lift Station sites are approved, and
4. Tesco is approved to integrate the fixed generators into the City’s SCADA system so long as their proposals are determined by Staff to be fair and reasonable, and
5. The City Manager is authorized to approve the aforementioned agreements and any needed changes orders up to the authorized Project budget.
IT IS HEREBY CERTIFIED that the foregoing resolution was duly adopted at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Cotati held on May 26, 2026, by the following vote, to wit:
Approved:___________________________
Mayor
Attest:______________________________
Kevin Patterson, City Clerk
Approved as to form:______________________________
City Attorney