It calls for more competition and pool of pre-approved engineering firms
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Six months after voting through more than $629,100 worth of flood-control contracts on a consent agenda and defending city administrators on how they handled engineering, members of Ocean City Council decided Thursday night to go a different route.
The Feb. 11 meeting took two and a half hours, most of it consumed by a lively back-and-forth on a proposal by first-year Councilman Tomaso Rotondi to build a pool of qualified engineering firms from which the city can choose for future contracts.
Proponents argued the proposal was all about good government and increased competition, but one councilman questioned whether council was overstepping its bounds and hinted at possible political motivations behind it. Later in the evening, council voted to pull a $55,000 contract for ACT Engineering from the consent agenda, later tabling it, and to put a new resolution into the consent agenda.
That resolution, later approved along with everything else in the consent agenda, had a title but no substance.
As devised by city Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson, at Council President Bob Barr’s request, the resolution authorizes advertisement of requests for proposals (RFP) for general engineering services to create a pool of qualified candidates for future consideration for capital projects. According to Barr, the specifics of the resolution will be decided in the coming weeks.
Background
City Council has regularly approved contracts large and small, including no-bid contracts for engineering firms, via consent agenda. A consent agenda allows a host of resolutions “considered routine in nature” for varying items, including contracts, to be put up for a single vote by City Council with no discussion on any individual item. Council members are allowed to request any individual resolution to be pulled to be discussed separately, but rarely have done so.
At the Aug. 13 meeting, that is how City Council approved five engineering contracts, including three for ACT Engineering totaling $200,000 for flood-mitigation projects, $63,000 to Engineering Design Associates, P.A., for road projects and a $366,100 contract for Maser Consulting for a pump station design.
That meeting was contentious because representatives of the OC Flooding Committee specifically asked for items to be pulled from the consent agenda, which would have allowed individual discussion and public comment on each one. Committee members alleged the city was favoring specific firms, namely ACT Engineering, a suggestion that had Barr and Councilman Keith Hartzell defending the integrity of the administration and Business Administrator George Savastano, an engineer.
At the meeting, council members did not agree to the committee’s request and unanimously approved all the contracts with no comment on any of them.
Before last week’s vote on the new proposal, Mayor Jay Gillian brought the principals of ACT Engineering before council to showcase the work the firm has done on flood-mitigation and dredging.
In a lengthy presentation, ACT founder Carol Beske explained the work her firm has done for Ocean City in the past five years, often working with Anchor QEA, work, she noted, that has at times become a model the state uses for other municipalities to follow. She discussed getting a first-ever city-wide dredging permit, a permit for a road to the dredge spoils site (off Roosevelt Boulevard), allowing dredge materials to be trucked away rather than moved by barge, saving the city $8 million in costs.
ACT has worked for the past two years on a first-time long-range plan for flood-mitigation on the island from tip to tip. Beske said the city has spent about $7 million on contracts ACT has been responsible for, of which $4.5 million went to ACT and $2.5 million to Anchor QEA.
After the presentation Gillian said it was important for ACT to make the presentation in public (at least virtually via Zoom) to follow up on the presentations it made privately to members of council.
Afterward, members of city council thanked ACT and lauded the firm for the work it had already accomplished, particularly with dredging.
And then, the meeting turned abruptly, which resulted in council tabling a new contract for ACT for the West 17th Street neighborhood and a new resolution on how to proceed with future engineering contracts.
A new direction
A long discussion ensued on a proposal Rotondi previously circulated to the administration and members of council.
Rotondi, the Second Ward councilman, said as a consultant in his professional life, he has been listening to constituents, members of council and the administration on whether they should continue with past practices on engineering contracts and put them out to bid.
He said he then “worked with some people I’m close to in the political realm” and asked them how they handled contracts, learned about best practices and how different organizations around the state were handling things. He came up with a process of pre-selecting engineers and putting them in a pool. They would be pre-qualified for a three-year period and the city can decide whether it wants to choose one of the firms for a particular project or put the project out to bid. Rotondi said the city wouldn’t have to go out to the general public for contracts, but could go into the pool with firms the city trusts and had already vetted.
Hartzell said he believes in competition in his professional life in sales and that shopping for the best deals is what most Americans do in their daily lives.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with on occasion allowing for competition to see what other folks can do,” he said, saying other firms should be able to go before council, as ACT did, to make presentations. “There’s no harm in that,” Hartzell said.
He said the city still has a report from Baker International from 2017 on mitigation in the West 17th Street neighborhood. He said that plan is shovel-ready and there wasn’t any harm in delaying a vote on the ACT contract.
At-large council members Karen Bergman and Pete Madden said the city should go with ACT on the project.
“Why not stick with the people you’re working with who put a master plan into play?” Bergman said. “We know what we’re getting with the professionals we have.” She added she did not have a problem with RFPs in other cases.
“There is an intangible of companies that understand your business, your town, and what you’re trying to do,” Madden said. “There are times you’re going to go out to RFP and it makes sense to do that. There are times where you have a company that understands what they’re doing and who they’re working with and that is the intangible that it makes sense to go with them.”
Jody Levchuk, also a first-year councilman, agreed with Hartzell that competition is a good thing and that people in his Third Ward reached out to him about the West 17th Street project. He said he wasn’t concerned about waiting a few more weeks on it.
First Ward Councilman Michael DeVlieger said a bid process “isn’t penalizing anyone for the good work that has been done” and that he has been asked by constituents about going out for public bid.
He said he likes Rotondi’s proposal because it allows the city to have either a competitive bid or to be able to award the project to a pre-approved firm.
Saying it was a seminal moment for the council, Barr said, “This is America. Competition is king.” Addressing Beske, he said, “If you’re good at what you do, and Carol I know you are, you shouldn’t be afraid of any competition. I know you’ll be able to rise up to it. I’’m confident you will participate in the process and put together a good package for us.”
At that point he asked McCrosson to put together a resolution on Rotondi’s proposal for inclusion on the consent agenda later in the meeting.
Madden said he feared council was overstepping its boundaries.
“I think we have to be very careful as council people that our job is to make sure there is a well-run city, not run the city,” he said. “When we get involved with policies and procedures, we’re getting way out of our lane.
“The past few years I have been on council, we’ve done an unprecedented amount of capital improvements because we’ve allowed the people who know what they’re doing to do what they do,” Madden continued. “This ordinance for a resolution presented to us a month ago was pulled off the agenda and now it’s a month later” and the city hasn’t begun the West 17th Street project.
“We have to be careful we don’t get in the way of progress. We’ve had a ton of progress and a lot of people on this island are extremely happy that they can see, feel and touch what is getting done,” Madden said. “This isn’t about competition. This is about us getting in the way of people who know what they’re doing.”
Levchuk responded to his concerns.
“I would like to say, Peter, I feel I am doing my job tonight as a council person. I think we all are. I don’t think any of us are overstepping any type of boundary,” Levchuck said.
“Pete, I’m sorry,” I vehemently disagree with you,” Barr said. “We’ve had this discussion before. This is council’s job. If this isn’t council’s job, then what are we here for? We might as well just go out to eat. We are checks and balances.
“It’s nothing against ACT, it’s nothing against the mayor,” Barr added. “He does a great job, but we have a job too and it’s time we start doing our job.”
Savastano interjected, saying council is doing its job and already has veto power.
“The fact is that projects, engineering contracts, construction contracts, they don’t move forward unless there is an agreement from the administration and council. Council can’t advance contracts without the administration. The administration can’t advance projects without the council.”
He added checks and balances “are a good thing” and noted the importance of the co-equal branches of government in the city – the administration and council.
Savastano argued in favor of ACT because council had authorized the firm to do a drainage master plan and it was part of the plan presented at a town hall meeting in December.
“To me it is eminently logical to continue with ACT,” he said. “It’s not based on anything other than their superior performance in finding grants, getting successful grants, getting permits, working with state agencies and getting a project done like the dredging.”
That, he said, is “the logic with going with ACT,” adding he has spent two and a half years evaluating the performance of various engineering firms and he listed firms the city has worked with including ACT, Maser Consulting, Hyland Design Group, Gibson Associates and Engineering Design Associates.
“It doesn’t change the fact that you (council) have the ability to say (you) want to do it a little bit differently,” he said. “That’s not our recommendation.”
Although Hartzell had argued that Baker International already had a “shovel-ready” plan for West 17th Street, Savastano corrected him.
“The Baker report that you’re talking about is not shovel-ready,” he said. “It’s a concept. The (ACT) contract that is on for tonight is not a study. It is design development, a first phase to complete the design that would take a look at the Baker concept and would incorporate elements that could be used with the Baker concept, into the construction. It’s consistent with the plan that we have presented on Dec. 5.”
A political aspect
Late in the meeting, after council had pulled the ACT contract from the consent agenda, council split 5-2 on tabling the contract.
Madden and Bergman voted against tabling the contract.
Hartzell, Barr, Rotondi, Levchuk and DeVlieger voted to table it.
After that was done, Madden spoke up again about what had taken place.
“I’m a little nervous about our meeting,” Madden said. “We’ve been here for two and a half hours with no ordinances and one person for public comment. We took off a resolution that continued progress in town and added a resolution that’s administrative in nature.
“I just want to make sure we’re not putting politics ahead of progress,” he said.
“Pete, you constantly talk about politics and nobody is up here being political,” Barr said. “You have a right to say anything you want to say but every time you say it I’m going to remind you that nobody up here is being political. Everybody is doing what they think is best. We may not agree all the time but we’re all doing what we think is best so to accuse people of being political, I think you’re crossing a line.”
The meeting adjourned minutes later.