You're juggling 42 projects at the same time. Are you right?
Absolutely okay?
Now be the same way. Good
morning. Good morning.
There's our chairman. We have to pay attention now. Hey,
hey guys. Quick agenda today. John,
yeah, it is. You might set another record here.
It's not much going on. I don't know. I guess something's important on there, but it's 11 o'clock. What do you say we recording in progress? Sounds good. Convene this meeting of the Great Lakes Water Authority operations and Resources Committee on this 14th day of August, at 11am Miss Willis, quote, unquote.
Chairperson, Hendricks, present director Zach present, and director Baker is excused from today's meeting.
All right. Next item, John is the minutes of the agenda for July 10. Motion to approve is in order.
Do we approve the agenda? First?
That's this good point. How about we approve the agenda? Motion to approve the agenda.
I am I move. We approve today's agenda.
I support it. In favor, aye. Motion passes. Now the now on to the minutes. John, July 10, any questions? If not motions. In
order I move. We approve the minutes as written.
I support motion. I support all in favor, aye. And motion passes public comment bill. You want to take that for me?
Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, this is the opportunity for the public to participate in this meeting, although not required. If they wish to do so, they can either raise their hand on the Zoom application or press star nine on their telephone. And at this time, Mr. Chairman, I see no hands up. So a second call for public comment will be in order. Anyone
for public comment?
Again? Mr. Chairman, no hands up. So a third and final calls,
anyone for public comment?
All right, just throw one for public comment. Then that'll end. That portion of the agenda takes us to communications. Anything for communications today? Bill
No, Mr. Chairman, there are no communications for this committee today, and as
there's no old business that takes us right into new business. And the first item for Miss Porter is contract number 2402708, this is the gas and diesel fuel contract. Cheryl. Go right ahead,
please Good morning. Cheryl Porter, chief operating officer for water and fuel services for the Great Lakes Water Authority. Right for you you have is a new contract in order to establish gasoline and diesel fuel replacements at our fueling stations in order to keep our vehicles and equipment functional to support our various operations. Our previous contract was with crystal flash. So we have a new contract here with r, k, a. We are utilizing the Michigan inter governmental trade network in order to establish this contract. And again, we use our vehicles to deploy our teams to do field work, maintenance work, sample collections, sample investigations, and that's just a general feel for the many things that we do. So we do need the fuel for our vehicles in order to keep them on the road so that we can continue to provide the valuable resource of water and wastewater services to our member partners. And with that, I will open it up for questions. Crystal
Flash was the previous vendor for this service.
That is correct.
How long have they been with glee, what
I will call on my procurement partners for that. I think the last contract
was from 2022
I didn't see their name. I didn't see their name on the spreadsheet. Did they not provide a bid for this service for this time.
Well, this is the cooperative agreement, and they did not participate in it with the mitten organization. And still,
why do you think that is
I don't have a clue. To be perfectly honest with you, we can look it up, I believe. Well, I can tell you, I don't know why they wouldn't have had it a
bit. We would not have known. Yeah, we use the business Sonny Collins procurement director. We did use a cooperative for this particular agreement, we did not dig into why people did not bid again. We were leveraging the co op process, which was a competitively bid process, but we can definitely at least circle back and try to figure out why they did not
submit a bid. To my only curiosity is that they were the incumbent contractor, and they didn't bother to even submit a bid this time around. If you're saying that this process was outside of what they're normally accustomed to, then that would make sense to me. But why they wouldn't submit a bid at all? I just it made me wonder, and it seemed like you guys would want to wonder as well.
Yeah, like, like I said, this is a co op, so we're piggybacking off another, another entities contract I got you. So we did not use a bidding process for this particular but we did not, again, delve further into why this organization did not bid with the with Sterling
Heights, okay? And then the only other question I had, I couldn't seem to quite get these numbers to reconcile. The contract is for $2.3 million through a certain period with an option to extend it through, I think, 28 or 29 but when I look at the spreadsheet, I'm seeing numbers, but I don't see 2.3 million. I see 3.4 4 million for RK A, and then under RK a, I see 7.5 million. Maybe you can explain to me how we're reconciling these numbers, yes.
So yep. So yes, sir, our numbers are based on our budget, right? And these prices are based on Sterling Heights bid prices. So that's their usage, not, not, not necessarily, GWA usage. Our usage is based on what we plan to spend. This tab is based on what Sterling hide plans to spend.
Okay, when you say, when you say Sterling Heights, that's our K. No,
our K, A is the actual vendor that was selected. Excuse me, by Sterling Heights. And excuse me, since it's a cooperative agreement, we are contracting with our Ka, yes, the
city of Sterling Heights. I did. Yes, sir, yes, yes, I got it all right. I got you, John, anything.
I don't have any questions. I'm familiar with crystal flash. They have quite a facility up north, around Cadillac and pass, I pass it by all the time on my way back and forth to the up north house and and all. But I, I'm, I assume that the Sonia and Dan, I'm I assume that you're thinking is that this is a deal where this where we are actually doing better, because we're piggybacking with a neighboring community, a good a good member partner to us and stuff. And so I have no objections to this. I'd be glad to make the motion to approve. So move the emotion motion to do contract number 24, 02708, with r, k, a,
I support that. All in favor. Aye. Thank you. Next item is Item b, change order number one for the front entrance rehabilitation at Water Resource Recovery Facility, contract 2201744, Ms Moran, Mr. Moran,
thank you. Mr. Chairman. Navid Moran, chief operating officer for wastewater operation before you is a request for a time extension to commercial contracting corporation with no additional cost at this time of around 229 days, some of the this is the project that we are renovating the entire front entrance of the WRF. This allows for better traffic flow for team members that are coming into the facility, additional parking, and also one of the major parts, which is the renovation or rehabilitation of the concrete structure that's underground that acts as a surge basin for the one of the major intercepted the DRI and protects our pump station if there wasn't an event on the power outage, the project has experienced several delays, mostly around permitting and some of the access as it relates to operations, because it is such a high traffic area, and also connected with our day to day operations. There has been some challenge to get the work done. So the team is working through all the challenges associated with it and reviewing the delays to ensure that if there is any eligibility for additional compensation. But at this time, we are correcting the time and later date, we will bring forth to the board if there is cost more than what is in the allowance that could tolerate the expenses associated with the delays. And at this point, I can take any questions. Okay,
so this is a extension in time only request. John, you have any questions?
I do not. So it's just 229 days. So that's about two thirds of the year, okay? And I'm glad to make the motion to approve this time extension.
I support it. All in favor. Aye. That motion passes. Next item is item C. This is amendment number three for fire alarm, fire sprinkler, fire extinguisher maintenance contract number 2000284, Navid Murad, thank
you, Mr. Chairman. Before you, is there a request to increase in costs, no time to Johnson control fire protection for the WRF. So we utilize Johnson Controls, their specialty organization to handle life safety type equipment, fire alarm systems, fire sprinklers, the extinguishers. They do maintenance regularly. You have to replace the extinguishers as they expire. You have to test them, recertify them. So we utilize this service on a regular basis, and they are responsible for routine PMS and maintenance. And also, we have a clause within the contract that allows us to leverage them to do major improvements that may be necessary based on emergencies incidences. So for example, you'll see in the justification, there were several areas where we had unexpected expenses that occurred at the W, R, F, and these things we kind of have to respond to very quickly, because they this infrastructure is really there to protect our team members and our facilities, so we have to move forward on them quickly. There were several improvements to the bee houses. These are structures that are next to our secondary clarifiers. There was damage to fiber line communication, which closed the link between our central hub and the facility itself. So that would avoid from having to understand there's an incident that occurred to be able to make the appropriate dispatching. We have fire alarms that had failed. We have CO two systems throughout the plant for high electrical rooms. This is areas where we starve the oxygen in the space so that the fire can be extinguished immediately. We had some failures there that we had to make some investments in. So throughout the site, we had these investments that were made that were unexpected and resulted in us exhausting the dollars that we had identified for the full contract term. The request before you will allow us to finish the contract term and allow for a 10% allowance for any on unexpected expenses that may be necessary for this contract term and and after the end of this term, we will advertise the contract out for bid for renewing the services. And at this point, I'll take any questions.
So NaVi is Johnson Controls? Is this the vendor that's responsible for the ongoing and routine maintenance and, okay, upkeep of all of this, all this fire equipment that is correct, yes. And so there are funds embedded in each of these contracts that they're paid to go around and check all of these systems that is correct on a regular basis, whether they're monthly, quarterly. And so talk to me about these failures that you cite in this in your narrative, is this old equipment. When you say failure, it tells me that something is going on that seems it should have been detected during the normal operations and maintenance and upkeep of these of these devices. What's up with that?
Yeah, so there's so there's two fold one your statement is very accurate. Each piece of equipment will have a frequency associated with it, if it's quarterly, if it's monthly, sometimes a piece of equipment might have all three a quarterly, a monthly and an annual. And there's just different level of engagement that you do with that piece of equipment for those frequencies. Now, the contract term, the way that it established, is that the Pm is responsible for checking and maintaining now, the one part that I cannot speak to specifically if the pm was the one that actually identified the problem and then required corrective action, or if the failure occurred and then we had to correct the problem. Nevertheless, in both incidences, the cost associated with repairing the damaged equipment is outside of the normal pm contract. So there is even in, as I'm kind of identifying, is the $415,000 that's identified has a an improvement project that has been identified that needs to be made under this contract, for the for the facility, so, so what that means is that the contract term, when it was established, in most cases, the dollar amount includes and routine pm work, and then an allowance or a line item for repair work. And both of those dollars were exhausted under this under this contractor,
so we ran out of money for maintenance and upkeep. Is what you're saying, that's correct, and how we how are we compensating for that? Going forward, you're saying that there's going to be sufficient money in this contract to make sure
that is correct. So the team, based on their experience, and after having to make so many improvements that we have already made, the project manager believes that this is a sufficient amount of funding unless there is major catastrophic failures that we experience, in addition to what we are used to, we believe that this is sufficient amount of funds to get us through the year.
So we've got these devices spread out all throughout our system. These are not just confined to one building,
right? That's correct. We have.
How do we know that the maintenance and upkeep is being done in a timely fashion. How do you know that that's happening? So we
have multiple control methods. So one, we have a dedicated project manager that's responsible for collaborating with Johnson control to making sure that the work is done. And we have that using
a project manager that's somebody independent of Johnson. Yes,
this is our internal glwa project manager that's responsible for it, okay? And we have site champions as well. So water, for example, has their own team that works with Johnson control on their sites. Our conveyance team that manages the CSOs and some of the pump stations, they are working correct with Johnson control to make sure that that work is being done. So we don't have one central hub trying to manage glwa such large infrastructure. So that's our first first or first and foremost. Then we also have, as part of Johnson's controls deliverable, they have to submit to us quarterly reports so they are actually physically publishing report. And these are the things that they found that the reports includes photos, descriptions, findings, correctives, recommendations and all other features. So through both of those criterias and walk throughs that our team does, we ensure that the services being rendered are adequate in accordance to the contract.
This contract Chairman run out, June 30 of 2025
that is August, August 31 2025
August 31 2025 okay, and so that's when you would go out and rebid this. Look for Yeah. So this is the third extension, I guess you'd call it amendment number three.
This will bring the total contract of five year, and typically will start advertising several months before the extension, so that the contracts overlap, because these are, like life safety equipment, we don't want to have a gap in the contract term. So the objective would be that we would start advertising in March and prepare to have a contract in place, ready to go by August. 1.
I do want to mention, is this on your columns, procurement. I do want to mention that this, this particular contract, is also a co op. We bid this out a while ago. We did not get any bidders, and then we negotiated with Johnson Controls and got better pricing through their Co Op agreement within JPA International Joint power Alliance.
Okay,
yeah. I mean, I think it's great Sonia when we can get better pricing. But when I hear Naveed talk about catastrophic failure to me, that's what peaks my ears, not the lower price. Because catastrophic failure to me, what follows is something happening that is so destructive that we have, you know, buildings that are not being properly secure from a fire protection standpoint. So I hear you, NaVi, you use the term catastrophic failure, and I guess we have to hold Johnson accountable for not only the maintenance and upkeep, but making sure that these systems function as they were intended to. And it's on, I guess, your folks to hold their feet to the fire and making, I mean, look, I can walk past a fire extinguisher anytime, and there's a slip of paper on there saying that somebody signed off on it for the month of October. I'm sure it is a lot more complicated than that when you talk about some of these systems, but I just hope that people aren't getting laxed on your end, and make sure that these dollars that we're contracting for Johnson that they are doing what they're supposed to do in a timely enough fashion, so these catastrophic failures won't be occurring ever again.
That's a that's a very fair point, Chairman. And one of the other things that I did not mention that our team monitors as well is we have a building management system. So this is an automatic system that's integrated into our control system. To some extent, they're separate just because of potential cybersecurity risk, but there is a monitoring tool, so we have team members that are actually monitoring potential outages and failures as well, in addition to the reporting and the walkthroughs and the auditing that I talked about, there is real time data that comes back that will tell us we have a fault in a panel, or there is, you know, smoke detector is out. So we have multiple layers of monitoring that the team has. And I will tell you that, you know, just kudos to the project manager. I recognize that the expenses has exceeded, but there was a significant lift when glwa took over. There was a significant amount of faults on the system and failures on the system that have now been corrected, and I can comfortably say that at the WRF, all the fire protection and life safety equipment is operational, and the team is monitoring it, and we have set a new standard of care that's expected from that type of equipment. To your point, exactly.
John, any other questions? No,
no other questions to approve amendment number three with Johnson Controls.
All right, I'm supported. All in favor. Aye, That motion passes bill. Do
we have any reports? There are no reports for this committee, Mr. Chairman.
All right, the on our committees. Next meeting is slated for September 11, according to the agenda here, any information, any other matters, anyone call Mr.
Chairman. I just have a quick question for Sonia or the staff. This is the first time I think that I can remember where we like piggyback with, like, another community, like Sterling Heights. And in my city management days that was, it was fairly routine we would piggyback with the state of Michigan on salt, for instance, and and and get a better price and all. So this is the kind of situation where you you're looking ahead of these kind of things and seeing if we can get a partner. And so I don't recall us ever approving one of these kind of projects before. Is this a first or or at least maybe it's maybe it was early on when Great Lakes got
going.
I just, I'm curious. No,
we have many project contracts that we piggyback off of. We always try to do our due diligence. We always try to test the market first to see what's out there. I believe just for the Johnson control ones. I believe that once we we tested the market there the Johnson control one. Johnson control bid came back that it was just it was more profitable, better. Pricing was better as we looked through going through the cooperatives we do that. I believe with the elevators, it's true. So we, we, we we, we try to take the advantages and when we can,
okay, yeah, well, you know the crystal flash matter and the new that, that contract that was discussed rka, kind of interesting in the sense of, you know, talking to because, you know, the state of Michigan was pretty helpful over the years with working with smaller communities and, and, and also, I'm glad that you're looking at that as well. Just go flat out going out for bid. So thank you, Mr. Chairman,
thanks thanks for that. John Sue Coffey, you got anything before we adjourn?
I do not all
right. Well, then, if there's nothing else from the team, and then no objections, we will adjourn the meeting and look forward to seeing everybody on what Bill the 28th
to weeks from now. Yeah, that's correct, Mr. Chairman. All right, we are, Jim, thank you, again, everybody. All right, talk to you. Two o'clock today, recording stopped. Sounds good.