Business Agenda Item 5a
STAFF REPORT
City Council Business Item
DATE: November 6, 2023
TO: Honorable Mayor and Council Members
FROM: Brendan Byrd, Public Works Director/City Engineer THROUGH: Merritt Perry, City Manager
SUBJECT: Approve a Supplemental Budget Request and Professional Services Contract with GHD for Design and Environmental Services for the Mill Creek Habitat Connectivity Project (CIP#9123)
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Receive staff presentation and recommendation to authorize the City Manager to execute a professional services contract with GHD for design and environmental services for the Mill Creek Habitat Connectivity Project (CIP#9123) and authorize a supplemental budget request for $966,000.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Since the completion of the Jameson Creek Project in 2020, staff have been interested in pursuing further restoration grant funding for various culvert crossings along Mill Creek. Mill Creek is a productive stream for salmonids, adult steelhead, Coho and coastal cutthroat trout, which have been observed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The Weber Street crossing is the extent to which fish have been observed making it up the stream, as the crossing is a fish passage barrier. Additionally, the crossing is significantly undersized.
In 2022 funding became available for these types of planning projects through the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB). The WCB is the agency that partially funded the Jameson Creek project. In response to the funding availability, staff began working with our consulting engineer to develop a planning project for the Weber Street culvert crossing, which would include 100% engineering plans, specifications, construction cost estimate, and permitting for the project.
However, after some initial discussions with the WCB it became clear that their program was seeking to fund larger projects, beyond the overall scope and scale of the City’s proposed single crossing, and therefore staff elected to include the next three upstream crossings along Mill Creek in the project. These three additional crossings are located at Rohnerville Road, Mill Street, and Mountain View Road, and each is at minimum a partial barrier to fish passage, and several of them are also in need to repair or reconfiguration.
Staff worked with the City’s on-call engineer for drainage and restoration work, GHD, to develop the grant application and project scope. At the July 17th Council meeting a resolution to authorize staff to submit the grant application was approved by the Council. In August, staff learned that the project had been approved and fully funded.
Business Agenda Item 5a
To begin project work the City will need to award the professional services contract. Unlike some projects which are awarded under the City’s on-call engineering services contract, or other procured through competitive proposals, staff are proposing to sole-source award this project to GHD. For the WCB grant program, the qualification of the project team (including design professionals) are taken into account, and therefore GHD and their subcontractors were written into the grant. As such, staff recommends that the Council approve a contract award to GHD as a sole source professional services contract, consistent with the City’s procurement/purchasing policy outlined in FMC 2.50.070. A copy of GHD’s proposed scope of work, which is consistent with the scope as outlined in the City’s grant agreement with WCB, is included as Attachment A. If approved, staff would immediately proceed with contracting, and project activities will begin in December of this year.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The project is fully funded through a grant with the WCB in the amount of $966,000. The City is required to provide staff time as a match to manage the project in the amount of $10,000 - there is no cash match required by the City. A supplemental budget request has been prepared and included as Attachment B.
The fee estimate for GHD to provide the services outlined in the attached scope of work is $966,000, and was developed as part of the project grant application. This fee will be covered entirely by the project grants.
RECOMMENDED COUNCIL ACTION:
1. Receive staff presentation and review Council questions with staff
2. Open Public Comment
3. Close Public Comment;
4. Motion to Authorize the City Manager to execute professional services contract with GHD for engineering and environmental services for the Mill Creek Habitat Connectivity Project (CIP#9123) and authorize a supplemental budget request for $966,000. Voice vote.
Attachments:
Attachment A – GHD Proposal
Attachment B – Supplemental Budget Request Form