The motion to accept staff’s recommendation of ISL Engineering for the Columbia-Washington project was reconsidered at a special meeting of council convened on Monday afternoon with key members of staff present.
This time, the motion passed 4-1 with Coun. Laurie Charlton opposed, and both Coun. Andy Stradling and Coun. Hanne Smith absent.
Since the motion was defeated last week, staff prepared a report to address the questions raised by council.
The big change this week was Coun. Kathy Moore’s vote in favour.
“I think we’re up against a wall getting our grant applications in by April 29,” she said, “and we need an engineering firm to help us do that, so I’m willing to go with ISL.”
If the engineer chosen by the current process wasn’t approved now, the process would have to restart and the loss of time might also “lose the synergies available through the MOTi (Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure).”
As the staff report noted, “MOTi has granted some very substantial incentives and potential cost reductions by working in conjunction with [MOTi].”
“I sure wish the process had been a little different,” Moore added, “and I hope if we run into something like this again, we can do it a little differently.”
“[My problem] wasn’t the selection of ISL,” she said. “I think there are a number of really qualified firms here.”
Although Moore found the new report prepared by staff “very helpful,” she was still not satisfied she had received “something from staff to say: ‘We want ISL for this reason.’ They are better than the [other four shortlisted companies] for this reason.”
Coun. Kathy Wallace, however, was very satisfied with the information supplied by staff and felt that it amply addressed the issues raised at the previous meeting and resolved much of the confusion.
The value of $300,000, for example, is the budget estimated by ISL for the total engineering cost while $250,000 is what council has (so far) committed to complete the engineering, particularly the initial phase.
Currently, the scope of the project is unclear, so costs for final engineering won’t be known better until “50 per cent design” is complete. This is the point where old data has been reviewed, new data collected, the upgrades planned, the drawings prepared, and a class ‘C’ estimate of costs provided.
ISL estimates between $50,000 and $75,000 to reach this point. They have to prepare a new class ‘C’ estimate because the one previously provided by WSA responded to a simple question of replacement and did not consider the potential to redesign the new infrastructure, staff reported, to do it “smarter” and more cost effectively.
“Experience tells us that what was done 50-100 years ago may not be the best solution today,” the report said.
Wallace was pleased with the choice of ISL. “It’s good to be working with a large firm that will be able to pull specialists,” she said.
“They operate under sustainable principles. They acknowledge the delicate balance in a small community for maintaining control on the budget.”
“Importantly,” Wallace continued, “they have a strong working relationship with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Also importantly, our staff have told us that they are the people they would prefer to work with.”
The report said, “staff has made the recommendation based on their professional analysis, interviews, research and comfort level.”
Elsewhere the report asserts, “One needs to recognize the levels of competencies of the personnel, [professional staff members,] reviewing the submissions.”
Coun. Jill Spearn concurred, “overwhelmed” by the thick report. “I just needed more information about the process, and that was clarified in this report, and I appreciate that,” Spearn said.
“I didn’t need 100 pages of detail on all these companies,” she said, noting that she trusted staff with the daunting task of analysis.
Charlton agreed that the amount of information in the package was very great, but also mostly “irrelevant.”
He pointed out that Stradling’s motion had not called for information on all ten companies, but only the top four — of which only two made the final stage of interviews. Furthermore, “what was provided didn’t really answer the questions,” Charlton said.
“Quite frankly, I think there are several companies who are qualified to do this,” Charlton said. He went on to identify problems he had with the selection process and how it was communicated to council.
Moore agreed, “I feel there were many weaknesses, many of which Coun. Charlton has put forward.”
In particular, Moore wondered what council was even being asked to decide, as the only options given were “ISL or can the project.”
“No one’s talking about canning the project,” she said. “The decision to hire ISL was basically already made under the way this process was set up. We weren’t given a choice. We’d have to start all over again.”
CAO Victor Kumar explained that the process was set in motion by the request for qualifications (RFQ) passed by council in February, and had council wanted a different process, February was the time to discuss the issue.
“This [process] wasn’t satisfactory for some members of council,” Spearn said, “Let’s learn from it. ISL is a good company and came out at the top, and we need to move forward.”