Council OKs more than $1 million in contracts with no public discussion
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – Resident Suzanne Hornick’s request that big contracts by the city not be included in all-encompassing consent agenda again went unheeded last week, as Ocean City Council approved more than $1 million in contracts with no comment on them.
Hornick, who said she was speaking on behalf of the OC Flooding Committee, said it is unfair to taxpayers to have 21 resolutions on a consent agenda when they only have 48 hours to review them, once the agenda is posted ahead of the meeting, and then only about four minutes to speak at public comment before council votes.
“It appears to me as though the city wants to rush these expenditures through without citizen input or hearing our concerns,” Hornick said. “In my opinion, the best-run cities are the ones who are transparent and foster an open, honest dialogue between the administration and its people, which I think we do a good job at but that we could do more.”
Hornick took particular exception to a contract with ACT Engineers that was part of the consent agenda. She has targeted that firm before, questioning its value to the city for the money spent.
“ACT Engineers has not produced anything of substance that I’ve seen for the millions of dollars we are paying them,” she said. “We need to stop throwing our money at them.”
She also questioned the fact that employees of ACT Engineers were reviewing a dredging contract and recommending the bid winner.
She said four employees of ACT Engineers and five city employees have read the bid specs … and recommend the bid be awarded to Trident Company with a base bid of nearly $1 million.
“I don’t understand why non-employees (of the city) are approving million-dollar contracts,” she said. She questioned whether the city had eliminated an engineering position and asked how many engineers were on the city’s staff.
She asked, “Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to hire an engineer?”
Ocean City Council members unanimously approved the consent agenda without comment on any of the individual items.
Among the consent agenda items approved in one fell swoop at the meeting were:
– A $948,860 contract to Trident Piling Company, LLC of Longport, for back bay mechanical dredging. The contract is for maintenance dredging for Snug Harbor, Glenn Cove, Sunny Harbor and South Harbor.
Trident underbid the next lowest bidder by about $147,000.
The specifications required the bidder to show it had completed three similar projects in recent years. Trident showed three in Ocean City – a $765,000 contract for dredging Snug Harbor in 2016, a $653,000 contract for dredging Glen Cove and South Harbor in 2016, and a $1.038 million contract for dredging Snug Harbor and South Harbor in 2017.
– A $101,839 contract with Downtown Decorations, Inc. of East Syracuse, N.Y., to handle the city’s holiday decorations, including putting them up, taking them down and storing them from October 2021 to the end of January 2022. The vast majority of expense in the contract is for labor, which is billed at $69.68 per hour. The firm has been doing the work for the city since 2012.
– A $19,829 contract with Bill Swenson & Sons, LLC of Egg Harbor Township for aluminum for aluminum boardwalk handrails.
– A $26,562 contract with Coastal Landscaping of Rio Grande for irrigation at Memorial Park. The company has worked with Ocean City since 2015.
– A $24,000 contract with Engineering Design Associates of Ocean View for stormwater management in Ocean City.
– A $136,500 contract to ACT Engineers of Robbinsville for construction management and inspection services of 2020-21 back bay dredging.
– A resolution authorizing the sale of city equipment deemed surplus on GovDeals.com. Items to be sold include used fire department equipment such as gear and radios.
– A $8,302 change order adding to a $194,000 contract from 2020 with Walters Marine Construction, Inc. of Ocean View for improvement to beach ADA ramps.