City Council - Public Works and Natural Resources Committee

[Music] okay let's go ahead and get started uh this is the January 29th uh meeting of Bellingham city council we're going to start with committee meetings and our first uh committee meeting this morning is public works and natural resources and that's shared by uh council member Hannah Stone thank you very much president Hamill um so good morning everyone I am joined on the public works and natural resources committee by council members Anderson and lillquist in lillquist absence this morning um council member hman will be filling in so thank you for that we have two items before us this morning the first is agenda bill 23989 so this is a contract award for post Point rof project group number one bid number 3B d224 so the post Point re roof project group one will perform replacement of roofs and related construction on six existing buildings at the post Point water waste treatment facility the city publicly opened three bids on January 11th 2024 high-tech Roofing Inc was the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of $988,000 191 including any applicable sales or use tax the engineers's estimate was 1,386 335 and the project includes an apprenticeship hour requirement um so thank you for including that and for this item I'm first going to turn to the director of Public Works Eric Johnston thank you Mr know with me is Joel fun a public works assistant director in charge of facilities and Transportation uh not too much to add to what's was already been said

in the agenda bill would just like to point out that there's a slight difference in the apprenticeship that we've included in the agenda packet normally we see a an apprenticeship hours listed in there that's usually when those apprenticeship hours are designated by the feds when we get a grant for this project uh using the current version of what we're using for specifications for City Fred projects for projects that are more than a million dollars that requirement is 15% % of all total labor hours so rather than trying to set a goal or a Target we're going to say if they had 1,000 hours they have to get 150 or whatever that percentage works out to be for total hours so there's not a specific listing of hours that's just a contract requirement that they have under preneurship program for 15% of the total projects for Public Works projects larger than $1 million the other thing I'd like to mention is the post Point projects uh this of course resonates back to the digestor projects and uh and one might asked the question how does this relate to that work ongoing down at post point a couple of these roofs were intended to be replaced as part of the digestor project a couple of them were just part of uh normal course of business so we're seeing continued investments in post post Point excuse me uh and follow through other the things we talked about when the digestor project was brought to a close uh in in in in Broad terms this is just normal maintenance down at post point to

make sure the RS don't Le to get our jobs done we have no further information to add and recommendations toward the contract thank you very much for that um I'll first turn to committee members for any questions I just wanted to um I guess one followup and part of it was um in connection with the second item and how right bids are received and then the review of whether a bid is responsive or responsible and I was just curious if um you could speak to so noting the bids that were received I noted on this contract right Pacific facility Solutions Inc it says nonresponsive I'm assuming that we didn't need to address that because I'm presuming that that bid was not the lowest correct in the sequence right that was the highest um and so whether there's a difference between something being nonresponsive versus non responsible um because the language was different in the two contracts so what I had discerned was that non-responsive was that it was rejected because of information within the bid paperwork itself and non-responsible was rejected due to information outside of the bid but I don't know if if there's any importance to those discrepancies or not well there is importance to those discrepancies but I generally will leave that up to Mr Matt stamps and our legal department and our purchasing to make those those fine pointed differentiations and Mr Matt stamps is right there didn't see him come on in so I will turn to Mr stamps to answer that question please all right Matt

stamps legal department so uh yeah you have the in Washington bids are awarded to the bidder the lowest responsive and responsible bidder are two distinct Concepts uh responsiveness relates to the bid itself they submitted all the paperwork that's required and then complied with all the requirements of the submitt responsibility refers to the bidder itself in Washington there's mandatory bitter responsibility criteria that are set forth in state law um uh I don't have the RCW my tongue but it lists you know seven or eight criteria one of them is relevant on the next bid you're going to see like possessing the required uh lur for for the job depending on the type of work um and then there's also some supplemental bit of responsibility criteria that gets get adopted for each project so responsibility is about the bidder responsiveness is about the bid that's helpful thank you Mr Sams okay council member Anderson we approval great so we have a motion before us to um move approval so again this is to move um move to award the contract for bid number 3 b-224 to high-tech Roofing Inc any further discussion okay seeing none all in favor we'll say I I I any oppos or extension seeing none that passes 30 and I'll bring forward that recommendation this evening thank you very much so for the second item this morning um I just want to note that council member lilis is with us um joining us now so welcome the second item before the committee is agenda bill 23990 this is contract award for

West Illinois multimodal improvements project es56 this is Bid number 22b d223 so the West Illinois multimodal Improvement improvements project adds sidewalks bike Lanes pavement markings fiber optic conduit flashing beacons storm water improvements and new curb and gutter in select locations from Meridian Street to Linn Street the meridian and West Illinois intersection will have the traffic signal removed and roundout installed the project also adds bike Lanes pavement markings and three crosswalks with flashing beacons along Meridian and Gerard streets the city publicly opened eight bids on December 14th 2023 new X Inc submitted the lowest numeric bid it was determined to be not responsible as described in the staff memorandum attached here to so Dawson Construction LLC is the responsible bidder who submitted the lowest responsive bid of 3,486 n140 including any applicable sales and use tax the engineer estimate is $3,648 500 and includes an apprenticeship hour requirement as well so for this item I'm first going to turn to Public Works director Eric Johnston thank you missone again uh similar things to the previous agenda Bill the apprenticeship hour requ requirement again is part of the contract and in illusion to the question that was asked on the previous item uh there is a very specific motion requiring asking the council to reject uh the bid submitted by new X Inc as a not responsible bidder and to award the contract to Dawson construction uh so just would ask that

that be very specific in the motion if you're so inclined to do so uh and Mr Mike Wilson and free Mr Freeman anthon are going to go through a couple of specifics about the project we'll note that this is uh in conjunction with a number of other projects that the city has under taking uh resulting from some actions the council took last summer related to on street parking requirements uh and this will extend much of the bike lane infrastructure across the north side of town to get us that continuous protected and separated bike Lanes uh from the East side of town to the west side of town and Mr Anthony will take it from there frean Anthony Public Works um Parkview projects ongoing this is what I call the sister Park sister project to that PR similar order upgrade I will go ahead and run through the uh channelization plan that's been uh We've added some colors in the area can see generally what's going on okay actually real quick vicinity map so overall the big the main work of this project is on the corridor from Lind Street to Meridian there's the roundabout conversion um also with this project is Street marking so bike Lanes um on Meridian from uh Illinois Street North bike Lanes also Gerard from Broadway down to Young Street so that brings us right down around the corner here which is a great uh great connection you'll notice that between Illinois and Broadway we are doing shared Lane markings uh to preserve the parking on that busy Corridor so slight difference right there

in addition uh there'll be our rfbs rectangular rapid flashing beacons at H Street in Gerard and up at Oregon stre well uh those uh oh and then there's also one at North Street these get the bump outs done for pedestrian Crossing basically you crosswalks reduced pedestrian Exposure One at North Street already has the bump outs that's just putting in the flashers so those three components along with the markings are also part of we'll go through the channelization plan here that specific to fordor and West Illinois little bit of background which I kind of thought found interesting originally West Illinois was meant to be a very large East West Corridor hence the Landon airplane on this section of it here but uh we are adding sidewalks to it trying to slow down the corrid or bit and that includes for the South sidewalk here we're actually removing Road panels to make the sidewalk rather than adding the sidewalk behind the existing curb decreases our impervious surface that we're adding basically changing car Habitat to pedestrian facilities so um try to zoom in a little bit here bear with me so we have so this starts at Lind Street here nothing real crazy just adding uh sidewalk here we are using a lot of Porous concrete as well just generally helps our storm water uh moving along through the corridor basically uh improving pedestrian bump outs and curb returns at the intersections here where needed um remove parking on both sides of this stretch um and then put the bike Lanes

in each way so it's really kind of taking this from an arterial down to a much more residential feel that carries through Pass R Ellis Court uh Parks recently redid this playground we have a little connection here which is nice bring Folks up there moving along uh through past Walnut Street now you get over to Northwest here uh at Northwest green bike boxes basically enhancing the intersection improving The Pedestrian ramps here and um that includes a big bump out here right where there's a law firm right here so this takes parking off this chunk we're consolidating these driveways into one which is nice and then you pick up your parking strip right here the South Side so now you have parking on the South Side from Meridian sorry from Northwest over to Meridian um then think if there's anything else really amazing here I will say um H just sound energy is moving like 20 poles this project so big thumbs up there they're doing it okay so now you're moving along between Northwest and Meridian uh again maintaining that parking on the South Side improving curd ramp to ada8 all through here then getting close to the roundabout so apologize here but this is actually and this one North is to the top of your screen for this graphic here North is to the right so Egan parking lot is over here and the lower left there's the vet here so forth so talk to these businesses they're call it excited ready to tolerate it so with a roundabout as you come in uh we do have basically splitter

Islands these are Hardscape Islands these start the chicane movement of the vehicle to go through the roundabout uh it reminds drivers to slow down as they're approaching an intersection you've pulled The Pedestrian Crossings back here so they can have a uh basically a wide median enough to basically stop when they're crossing the street Center median here is mountable for trucks and emergency services so it has essentially like a rolled curb so you can go over it there's no decoration or anything it's just going to be some sort of concrete the surface and as a reminder our approach to cyclist facilities through a roundabout is bringing them up into The Pedestrian way so as you can see you're adding almost doubling your pedestrian sort of area here throughout this intersection which is going to be nice it's a lot of lot of pedestrian activity here a lot of businesses we bring the cyclists up here knowing that an a confident cyclist is likely to just keep the lane per BMC but we also have that facility for less confident cyclists to get up through The Pedestrian Zone to car way and so that pretty much is the end of the major Hardscape work is that Corridor uh here's a snapshot of some bike Lanes on Meridian you can see retaining parking on one side so forth uh here is another snapshot of parking sorry of the final layout on Gerard Street this is is at F Street so we get to add bike boxes here uh again maintaining your parking um on one side here's what Shar Lan markings will

look like through uh District you're found right there so standard procedure for the shared Lan markings through this Zone and last thing I have here is kind of a blow up of a new curb improvements at a rectangular flashing Beacon here so skip Stripes through for the bike fac facilities this is at H Street here and H Street is kind of interesting because it's one way we actually have a little lane diverter here because can't take a right AG Street here anyways so blows cars down even more folks are there so any questions counc lius well um Mr Anthony you addressed uh some of my concerns having to do with the the roundabout um I really don't like the one at Warf street because if you do decide to take the sidewalk you got some ridiculously sharp turns on a bicycle these don't seem as ridiculously sharp and as you say if I was riding through this I would stay in the lane um I can do 105 miles an hour on my ebike I can do more so I I can go through that pretty well I still think it's a bit of a compromise is there um any chance that uh green markings might be used to communicate better to all parties where bicycles are supposed to go or what their choices are you follow the manual of uniform traffic control devices um I'm not sure that they have any specific guidance for through roundabouts but it really comes down to our approach is consistent to bring the cyclist there and say this is your facility so the ramp up there is really it's not a conflict point right you're not

moving vehicles and Parts together we really like to reserve green marking when people are potentially playing in the same area this design the idea is your bike lane is ending and now you're on to now you're a pedestrian and and the bike lane leads straight to the ramp correct which indicate go right to it yeah um with regard to that Center Circle I see a different uh texture in the drawing um it would seem to me that it'd be good to have it maybe not only be an actual texture but maybe a color too um as you say it's going to be flat trucks and vehicles can actually go over it but to nonetheless mark it visually U what are the plans for how that texture or Surface might be marked it's going to be stamped concrete has a it has a you can actually if you drive over it you'll say oh this is a little rough so there's like at night kind of tell um and it'll be visually distinct it's not necessarily going to beor it is possible that we could color might you throw in some coloration in that concrete I will have to defer to the people that make the color decision you can get a bag for 10 bucks and put it in the mix I love it I will I'll check no no promises we we'll see you on site Mr liquis with your bag of color on that particular day if you don't mind thank you those are my questions a good project council member Anderson thank you um speaking of roundabouts just I talked to a couple of people about this area and I went out there this weekend and kind of looked at traffic flow and

looking here um wasn't able to completely discern I'm assuming the size of that because um it's not going to have landscaping or structures that it's not the circumference similar to the one out towards Kellogg which is a larger one but it's more the circumference and style that we see out in the county on Slater Road which is more like just a speed bump yeah I mean it's it's it's a there's a vertical deflection to it right so that's meant to nudge you around uh you wouldn't want to go over it at full speed necessarily because it would be uncomfortable that's what it's me as far as size it's would say it's been designed based on the unique features of that location as you can see we're on RightWay so you needed to we really felt strongly about keeping our minimum five feet at the corners so the rideway that had to be there but I will say it's it actually works really well as far as if it was much smaller we had a little if we had a little less rideway we might have rethought this you know would it's always nice to have more but because we had zero lot line buildings we couldn't go any smaller but at the end of the day we said actually this is still quite workable big concern is you're left of a large truck coming through the intersection that's probably the big so that kind of leads me to my next um question because and I understand the size of it because we are hemmed in because of the zero lot line on two sides and it would just be if we bought um or purchase property more

to the other side it would realign the road but looking at the one out at Slater there's two and large trucks go over them and vehicles go over them all the time and the edging is constantly being crushed and then also snow plows going out there chips it off and throws it all over the place so I'm just thinking endurance and maintenance ability um has that been taken into consideration for the the design of it that we're not going to be going in there in two years and replacing the curving because it's just been all destroyed it's a little bit of a concern for those low-lying ones um that they really do get hammered um pretty quickly and I'm just wondering if that's been taken into consideration looking at what's been going on at Slater as an example I'll take that if you don't mind so so so yes we do consider the long-term maintenance effects of of projects like this and what that's going to look look like there's a there's a significant difference to Slater Road because the volume of heavy truck traffic on this particular roadway is not nearly to the level that we see on Slater Road which is the access point for you know all of our garbage trucks every single day but so so this particular intersection we do not have a lot of heavy truck movements that are turning left off of the Guide Meridian onto Illinois or vice versa so you see a very high volume of uh vehicle traffic north and south on the Guide Meridian uh the the left turning traffic by heavy trucks is not

substantial uh but in terms of how we maintain that how we maintain you know with our with our snow plows in particular that's a good thing to bring up timeliness give them two weeks ago uh one thing to note is that the city uses a different type of snow plow than the state does when it comes to plowing uh the interstate the state state uses a steel tip snow plow the city uses a rubber tip snow plows for this exact reason so our approach to maintaining our City's streets when it comes to snow plows uh we we get the added advantage of less less damage to our roadway surfaces using the rubber tip plow but we're not able to scrape the ice off so we balance those things off when it comes to the maintenance the the upside of of the roundabout giving all things considered is that we removing the traffic signal and the inherent delay that comes from that and the inherent risk of the left turn collisions that occur at at traffic signals the roundabout to the benefit of The Pedestrian to the cyclist and to the reduction of the conflict points is vastly outweighs whatever uh impacts that we might see on the on the tail end of it and and the roundabouts are tricky with this one in particular you can see the purple or magenta lines that are the property line we are not needing to property to build this particular roundabout so there's always a balance of design decisions we need to make with with you know cost and sustainability and uh footprint maintenance needs and and Public Safety in

this case where uh the roundabout is sized appropriately for the intersection is sized appropriately to move make the Turning movements and still achieve the reductions in speeds entering the intersection to benefit the pedestrians and the vehicles while still maintaining that appropriate turn radius the the center island is one in particular the diameter of those of those those Center circles is important but the chicanes entering the roundabouts are probably of Greater importance to getting people to control the speeds what's important there is can the can the can a large truck say a moving truck can it navigate that left turn when it needs to and for the vast majority of vehicles they'll be able to do it that large heavy truck is going to need to make a tight leftand turn and that rear wheels will track over that that uh that that roundabout Slater Road was an odd duck it was kind of together by the dot for good reasons uh this was a little bit more intentional um but the the trucks Dy the occasional truck making that leftand turning movement from southbound Meridian onto eastbound Illinois Street is going to track the wheels over the top of that surface hence why we don't put what we would prefer to put which is that visual obstruction in the middle of that particular feature which also has a safety benefit so long long I'm trying to round about way is that there's lots of factors that we were considered with this uh and trying to retrofit around abouts into Slater Road

or to Kellogg or to uh the Guide Meridian at this particular location is a is a complex Dynamics I'm putting six pounds of things into a 5 pound box and there's always a trade-off but I think we're finding a good balance here to meet uh primarily to benefit pedestrians while finding a benefit of improving movements for drivers when we don't uh without causing undue harm or delay now just add the Slater roundabouts are they use tiles basically the circle those things do not have span and over again we're using basically a solid curb so it's much more of a structure so it's gonna more lqu yeah as you you basically into my question I I the Slate of Road one I call them very superficial I I assume the the bottom of these curbs is actually on the road bed 6 in 8 in down they don't have their own footing do they they just go down to the road bed um they have a basically a structural based course it's put underneath the curbs as well so it's pretty stout and it's we'll get like 90 great I would like to make a motion to reject the uh bid submitted by newx as not responsible under the RCW and to instead award the contract to Dawson construction thank you very much any further discussion from committee any comments or questions from the rest of the council no okay seeing none all in favor we'll say I I I any opposed or abstentions okay seeing none that passes 30 and I'll bring that recommendation forward this evening thank you very much for your time okay and with that end of committee

thank you council member Stone our next committee is community and economic development and that will be at 1:30 and that's chaired by council member cotton we'll go ahead and recess until then thank you