Mayor Csordas called the meeting to order at 7:00 P.M.

ROLL CALL Mayor Csordas, Mayor Pro Tem Landry, Council Members Capello, Gatt, Lorenzo, Nagy (absent excused), Paul

ALSO PRESENT: Richard Helwig, City Manager

Clay Pearson, Assistant City Manager

Tom Schultz, City Attorney

Rob Hayes, City Engineer

Hugh Crawford, County Commissioner, was present and brought copies of the new Oakland County Directory for Council and staff. He also wanted to encourage Council to support the wireless Oakland County initiative. He had talked with Mr. Helwig, Member Gatt and Member Lorenzo and she has put it on the May 9^th Council agenda. Phil Bertolini, IT person for Oakland County needs a letter of interest this week from the Council. This is a wireless network that would cover all of Oakland County and they are looking for pilot cities, townships and villages. There are seventeen communities in Oakland County that have expressed an interest and there are more coming in. Some of the communities are partnering up with other communities which might be an option for Novi.

Mr. Crawford noted the pilot program would be at no expense to the City and would entail some cooperation from Novi to go into the community and make available sites for these towers. The antennas on the towers, light poles or buildings would be no bigger then a microphone and would not be visibly objectionable to the community.

Member Paul stated she supports this but would like something on the record from administration regarding why URS, being the low bidder, was not chosen?

Mr. Helwig said they could understand Council’s concern about seeing a proposal being recommended that is $52,000 above the lowest proposal. He said it was chosen for the difference in hours not only for design but construction inspection. One hundred dollars an hour multiplied by the 500 hours difference makes up for the $50,000 difference plus there were other crucial steps that were omitted. One of these was the topographic survey which is necessary to make sure you get the proper measurements of that structure before a replacement is designed. He said there has been a pattern in the low dollar cost bidder. This is the third time according to Mr. Hayes, City Engineer, they have seen low bids with the expectation of major change orders after it is awarded. In order to gain time and get this open before school traffic begins, Fishbeck and their associates came up with a proposal for the City to procure the beams and award that at the June 20^th Council meeting and that would save valuable time. Council will award the general contractor bid on July 11^th with the goal of reopening the bridge to traffic on August 18^th even though our RFP had September 20^th as an outside goal. He said putting all this together they felt very strongly about the recommendation. Mr. Helwig said Fishbeck, Thompson, Carr and Huber have some outstanding personnel that Mr. Hayes factored into his decision making. In the final analysis there is $600,000 that will be adopted into the budget and appropriated for this project. This would use up approximately $74,000 and leave $526,000. Mr. Hayes has contacted many individuals and ran three separate formulas based on the square footage and the process for building this. Mr. Hayes is confident that it can be built within that $526,000.

Member Paul said if there are any other URS bids out there Council needs to know what’s happening and she would like that information at the next meeting. Mr. Hayes said he planned on meeting with URS to discuss their fee proposal preparation and how they have underestimated some of the projects. There was a glaring shortcoming on their construction inspection hours compared to the other consultants and that got his attention. Member Paul said it is not just hours but other items. Mr. Hayes said it’s primarily labor. On this proposal and others they have underestimated the labor effort that is required.

Mayor Pro Tem Landry thought Mr. Hayes’ memorandum was excellent. He also asked that Mr. Hayes explain to URS that just as quickly as Council approved their limited number of people they can disapprove somebody. Council is interested in healthy competition among people and if someone is consistently not bidding correctly they shouldn’t be on the list.

Member Capello said the design fee and construction engineering fee is a fixed fee not a percentage. Mr. Hayes agreed. Member Capello asked if there was any money allocated to do engineering testing on the existing abutments. Mr. Hayes said no, it was not part of the

scope. The previous consultant, Anderson Eckstein, did the initial evaluation of the bridge and indicated that there was no apparent damage to the abutments. He thought Fishbeck

concurred with that. Mr. Hayes noted he inspected the abutments and didn’t see anything visible to either the north or the south abutments. Member Capello said then we are confident that when the decking is torn off there won’t be any issues with the abutments. Mr. Hayes agreed as there has been no evidence of any differential settling, no apparent cracks and they appear to be in outstanding condition.

Mr. Helwig stated he had asked Mr. Hayes if they could certify along with the replacement bridge components, that the useful life of the existing abutments would also be fifty years hence and Mr. Hayes said yes.

Member Capello asked if there would be enough room for a sidewalk on one side of the road going over the bridge? Mr. Hayes said the plan is to include the pedestrian walkways that currently exist on the bridge. Right now the pathways on each side take up the width of two of the beams on each side. So there are four beams taken up. There is plenty of room for two lanes of traffic as well as two pathways.

John Vultaggio, 26880 Gornada, said he lives in Country Cousins Mobil Home Park and asked if Council was aware of the water situation there. He wanted to know what action could be taken to get those involved to do what they needed to do. The water is dreadful and he wanted to know if he should turn to the press to get the landlord moving on this or if there was something the City could do. Member Capello said this is an issue between the residents and the landlord and suggested he talk with Mr. Helwig.

There being no further business to come before Council, the meeting was adjourned at

7:16 P.M.

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Lou Csordas, Mayor Mary Ann Cabadas, Deputy Clerk

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Transcribed by Charlene McLean Date approved: May 9, 2005