By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Some members of Ocean City Council tried to delay approval of a contract for an engineering firm, claiming their concern was about process and not the actual $17,000 contract, but after heavy pushback from other council members and claims of political interference, the attempt failed.
The lengthy debate at the June 10 council meeting also ended up getting the mayor and business administrator involved amid the pointed suggestion the administration has been dragging its feet on putting a new engineering pool into place.
Council President Bob Barr asked to pull Resolution No. 4 from the consent agenda to table it. The professional services contract for $17,000 was for ACT Engineers to continue its permit compliance monitoring of the Shooting Island restoration project as required by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Barr said he wanted it to go out to RFP (request for proposals).
Councilwoman Karen Bergman said she wanted to go forward with the resolution and Councilman Pete Madden suggested Barr’s move had to do with politics.
City Council “is getting much more political, which is getting in the way of progress,” Madden said, referring to comments he made a few months ago when ACT Engineers became the topic of a debate about a flood mitigation project on West 17th Street.
“ACT Engineers has been doing this same thing for years. For years everyone has had no problem with it,” Madden said. “And we’re stopping progress with the city. Council is stopping progress.
“It’s engineering, it’s the solicitor, it’s thing after thing,” he said, adding a ton of work has been done over the past decade, much of it approved in a 7-0 council vote. “And now all of a sudden, over the past six to eight months, when the votes have changed, now opinions have been changed and we’re getting in the way of people who know how to do the job,” Madden asserted. “I sat at a meeting last week and there was a discussion and a debate with the three most qualified people in the city over this particular topic. We have no business telling the CFO, the engineer and the attorney for the city how they should do their job. We can make recommendations. We can help make judgment calls. Not to decide who does the work. It’s out of our league and the only person who is going to suffer from it is the city who we represent.”
Second Ward Councilman Tomaso Rotondi said at issue was a resolution approved on Feb. 28 to create a pool of approved engineers from which to choose for projects because citizens were upset $7 million in no-bid contracts had been awarded.
“It’s been three months. Has the engineer pool been put into place? Has it been put out to bid? Three months,” he said. “I don’t know how long it usually takes from when a resolution has been passed to actually put it out to bid and actually start the process, but three months has gone by and nothing has been done. So is that council’s fault? Whose fault is that?”
Rotondi added the citizens had “challenges” with a particular vendor – ACT Engineers. “I’ve never seen anyone hold onto one particular vendor so tight,” he said. The one time a contract was put out to bid the prices came down, he said.
Rotondi said he doesn’t care who gets the job as long as it’s done correctly and done for a fair price. He said this contract should have been put into the engineer pool.
Madden said ACT Engineers had been successful overseeing back-bay dredging and working with the state on permitting.
Rotondi replied that people became more concerned with ACT after it went from dredging to flood mitigation and council wants engineering contracts put out for bid.
“People had a challenge with one vendor getting all the business,” Rotondi said. “That’s what we’re here to do is represent the people. I know a letter went out to residents on the inlets scaring them, saying these projects are being held up but it’s not being held up on our end. This could have been put into place three months ago. ACT could have gotten the business. I don’t care about the vendor. I care about the process.”
Madden responded that ACT being awarded the contract is an issue.
“Let’s let the engineer handle the engineering,” Madden said. “They’ve come back to us time and time again with ACT as their choice of who they want to do the job and they’ve done the job. For me this is a back-bay issue. They have done awesome with this. Why are we tabling it?
First Ward Councilman Michael DeVlieger said he never had an issue with ACT, but the council agreed on process for instituting a pool of engineers and it hasn’t been done.
“It was a reasonable request and the process is being ignored,” DeVlieger said. “I’m not throwing stones. I’m just saying reasonable requests are not being honored and that’s why we’re talking. We’re trying to work through this. The last thing in the world I want is these problems. I don’t care if ACT does it or the man on the moon. Is it a reasonable number for the public?”
DeVlieger said it is about process, not the vendor.
“So if I understand it right,” Madden said, “the administration is not doing it your way?”
“We voted on it as a council,” DeVlieger said about the bid process with a pool of engineers.
Bergman said she agreed, but using common sense why would the city go out to bid on a contract to have a different firm monitor the project that ACT completed and has been monitoring?
“Because that’s what we agreed to, Karen,” Barr said.
“It doesn’t make any sense. I’m all about making sense,” Bergman responded.
City Business Administrator George Savastano said the administration is not ignoring council’s request and the engineering pool is in process and an early form was used on the West 17th Street RFP process.
“We’re following up on the process that council asked,” he said. “It might not be exactly like you wanted it to be but it represents that process. And I’m not going to rush it. I’m not going to rush establishing an engineering pool. We’re going to do it right. I talked with Joe Clark in the purchasing office. It will be myself and Roger Rinck and Clark that will ultimately review these engineering firms, but we’re also doing other work. And this is one of them.”
He also explained that there wasn’t time to go out to bid on this particular contract because the city received the proposal from ACT in May to continue the monitoring work it already had been doing and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required the monitoring to be done in the second and third quarters. There also wasn’t a point to have a different firm since ACT has been involved with the project since 2015.
“To me it made eminent sense to put this (contract) before you,” Savastano said.
“Given that we just saw this the other day, wouldn’t it have made sense for you to pick up the phone and call us? Or Bobby? We were in the meeting with you the other day discussing this topic,” DeVlieger asked Savastano. Barr agreed.
“You and I have spoken on a thousand things over time,” DeVlieger said. “ I can’t think of a time we didn’t come to complete agreement on something. If you called me prior to this meeting and said this is what changed from then until now, I think I’d be moved. But you didn’t do that. I’m trying to establish some kind of cooperation. Obviously we’re at a point of banging heads, so I’m trying to create a situation where we can work through these things. Having respectful meetings like we did the other day is the way to do it. I would have appreciated that call.”
After Savastano explained the timetable and DeVlieger said he now saw there was a clock on the project, Barr moved to table the contract anyway.
DeVlieger seconded.
Mayor Jay Gillian interjected that they weren’t hiding anything from the councilmen. “We don’t hide what we do. At the end of the day that was a good meeting.”
“Jay,” Barr said, “that’s completely disingenuous on your part.”
“That’s the second time you’ve called me a liar,” Gillian told Barr.
Madden said, “This is the definition of politics holding up progress.”
When the vote came on the motion to table, Barr and DeVlieger supported it.
Madden, Bergman, Jody Levchuk and Rotondi voted against tabling the contract. Keith Hartzell was absent from the meeting.
When it was put out to public comment, Fairness In Taxes President David Breeden took Madden to task.
“My question to Mr. Madden is why is the city so averse to competition? Council has a fiduciary responsibility to the city of Ocean City to make sure getting best service for the best cost. ACT Engineers has received 40 contracts for $7.3 million with no competition. I would like to say that’s extraordinary and essentially unheard of in the state of New Jersey. RFP is a proven process that yields best service for lowest responsible cost.”
Suzanne Hornick of the OC Flooding Committee said she was “flabbergasted we’re still talking about ACT Engineers.”
“OC Flooding has demonstrated they have overcharged and done substandard work,” Hornick said. “For some reason Bergman, Madden and the administration want to keep spending money. I don’t want our tax dollars going to someone who has overcharged or underserved us. … ACT Engineers has not done right by this city and we need to stop doing business with them.”
Before the vote on the contract, Savastano said the engineer pool is coming soon.
“It won’t be about costs. It will be about qualifications. We are getting proposals now in accordance with council’s wishes,” Savastano said. “I would say too, I’m trying to be objective here, we have nothing other than through their performance an allegiance to ACT. It does seem to me to be about ACT, because we’ve awarded things recently to other firms and nobody questioned it.”
He mentioned two other engineering firms that were awarded contracts “and nobody questioned that. Nobody questioned about RFPs. It seems when ACT comes up, the RFP issue comes up.”
When the vote came to approve the contract with ACT Engineers, Bergman, Levchuk, Madden and Rotondi voted yes. DeVlieger hesitated then voted no. So did Barr.
Rotondi said he was surprised to learn the engineer pool was moving forward and to him, his concern remains about cost.
Later in the meeting, DeVlieger said he was happy the contract was approved, but he voted no “because I want you to know I’m going to stick with what I’m going to stick with.” He said he would vote no again if the process isn’t followed.
DeVlieger noted he didn’t want “cattiness” and “bickering” and that he respected the mayor and city solicitor Dorothy McCrosson, both who have done “a fabulous job.”