I would like to call this meeting to order. This is a Brainer Public Utilities Commission meeting for Friday, April 17th. And if we could please uh have roll call. >> Bailis >> here.
>> Jay >> here. >> Was >> here. >> England >> here. If everybody could please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> To the flag. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under
God, indivisible, liberty and justice. >> That's right. >> Okay, we're going to move on to the approval of the agenda. Do I hear a motion? >> So moved. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Okay, motion and a second. Any further
discussion? Hearing none. Roll call, please. >> Bailis, >> yes. >> Jay, here. Was >> here. >> Hangland? >> Yes. >> Oh, I meant yes. Sorry. I I followed along with somebody else. So, my apologies. Who said here? Did you say
here, Misty? Sorry. >> No, I said yes. >> You did. I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry. You got my full attention now. All right. I uh I shouldn't have put planted that in everybody's >> I know you did. It was you
>> planted the seed. >> Okay, we will move on to unfinished business. Item A, award construction contract for 2026 galvanized water service line replacement project in alley between South 6th Street and South
Seventh Street from Joseph Street Toronto Street. And with that, I will hand it over to Mr. Sandy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, so we solicited quotes uh for um one of our
two uh replacement projects in the uh Ronald Joseph Alley. So, the construction contract um for the reconstruction of the alley is currently ongoing. Uh the contractor has done removals in the alley. Um that's kind of the impetus for this meeting today is that we need to get um the con the
contractor uh awarded this contract um under contract and to get started on the galvanized water service line replacements. Um we got two quotes back when the solicitation was put out that was from Treader Excavating and Dantel Excavating. Um this is the south block
of the alley project. The alley project is a twob block project. This is for the south block. The uh next item is for the uh No, I'm sorry. This is for the north block. The next item is for the south block of the alley. So, this uh this project is for five galvanized water
services uh that have been identified in that uh north block. Um Treader Excavating was the apparent low quote at a total construction cost of $65,000 to replace those five services. and staff is recommending award to Treader
Excavating and um authorizing staff to ex or to enter into a construction agreement with Treer Excavating. >> Okay. Thank you, Paul. Does uh any commission members have any questions or comments? >> I just have a couple of questions
because there was it seemed like there was a kind of a definitely a change in the in the bids, which is good. I mean obviously but I I do question like what are construction allowances? What I is that just kind of a hey we can't put it in a a line item
so this is covers everything. And then my other question is is are these directional board in or are these open cut and removal? And I I just want to know what like when we look at construction allowances does that mean um if we're cutting into a driveway or
you know going under a sidewalk or an alleyway or something what does that entail? And >> yep, I can answer that question, Dolly. Thank you. Um, so we as uh staff, we discussed the construction allowance pretty early on. There's a lot of unknowns that come with these projects
and a construction allowance is something that we can address unknown. We can set that cost. The contractor has no um bearing on what that cost is. We set that as the city as every contractor needs to include that in the contract. And that's to cover any of the unknowns
that might come up with these construction. So, um there might be, you know, 90° bends under the basement floor, uh or that they need to chip out. And it's just a way for us to capture, um any of the unknown items that might pop up during the project. And so, um
you'll see that in all of our lead service line contracts moving forward. And we try to base that on how many service lines are we doing? What are, you know, are they going to be really simple projects? Um, this alley project is very complex because it's a very constrained corridor. There's a lot of
hard surfacing um and different things we might run into with construction. Um, related to your second question, um, this project was a quoted project and we just required that they do lump sum for each service. You'll see, um, on the
other uh, two projects, uh, the third item on our agenda today, all the quantities are broken out. And so the two projects vary significantly from how we put them out. This project didn't have any plans and specs. And so the onus was on the contractor to visit the
site, look at the five addresses, and put an estimate down as to what they think all the restoration, the replacement of the service line, the plumbing work, the electrician work, all that stuff would take. Um, I think the big difference between the two contract
prices, um, Dantel Excavating is a little bit of a bigger company, a lot more overhead costs. Treader, uh, in our, um, view, or at least working with them, they're a lot smaller outfit, uh, have a lot less administrative costs, overhead, that kind of thing. And so, um, and you know, the way contractors
look at these is we allowed basically either type, so open cut or directional drilled. Our expectation is at least for this one that they're going to directional drill most everything because everything's covered up by hard surface, driveways, landscaping, all that. And so to least disturbance
possible, I'm assuming these are all going to be directionally drilled >> and from the unit costs. >> Thank you. Actually, thank you, Mr. Chair. That because that actually answered my third my question on item number three. So, thanks for that that very detailed description. >> That's all I had. >> Yeah, thank you, Dolly. I think that's a
great question. And then uh Paul, maybe another word that could be used for allowance would be contingency. Would that be a fair statement? Contingency. >> It definitely is a contingency. You know, like I said, there's a lot of unknowns that we could run into and we will run into with these projects. Um
>> that, you know, we like to have a little bit of buffer. Um so we're not coming to you guys with very minuscule change orders every time something comes up. >> That's not something the contractor is going to be due at the end of the project. We will use that if something
arises. >> Okay. Thank you. And then uh Paul, for the benefit of of all the commissioners, could you maybe just speak to the reason why this is a quote versus going out for bids, let's just say, could you just maybe speak to the state
statute that we have to adhere to based on the threshold, the dollar amount? >> Yeah. So um at the during the design phase of a project, we will look at the estimated project costs. Um and if that estimate comes in um so there's kind of
three thresholds that state law um that we have to um we can direct select anything up to $25,000 of estimated cost. Between $25,000 and $175,000 in cost, we have to solicit at least two
quotes to come in. Um, and it it just requires like a solicitation. So, if we reached out to two vendors and we didn't receive any response from the second vendor, from a compliance side, that meets the requirements from a compliance side that we only got one back and the
other one didn't respond. Um, and the third 175 and above, that requires competitive sealed bids. >> Got it. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you, Paul. I think that's nice for us to know as we're reviewing these and just statutoily what we're
what obligated to do. So, thank you for that. >> Yep. >> Uh, anybody any other commissioners have any questions or comments? >> Okay. With that, do is there a motion? >> I'd make the motion to uh recommend awarding the contract to Treader. Uh, is
it Treader Excavating? Yep. for this uh an uh contract between Joseph and Ronald Street. >> Second. >> Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? >> Hearing none. Roll call, please. >> Bless.
>> Yes. >> Jay, >> yes. >> Was >> Penguin? >> Yes. >> All right. Motion passes. We will move on to item B. I need to get back to my agenda here.
Sorry, I'm online here using it, so I'm not used to that. Okay. Item B, a work construction contract for 2026 galvanized water service line replacement project in alley between South 6th Street and South Seventh Street from Ronald Street to Paul Street. Mr. Sandy.
>> Yep. So, similar to the last item, this is for the South alley. Um, there are eight identified galvanized water services um in this alleyway. Again, we got the same two quotes back or the same contractors quoted on this one. Treader Excavating and D Chantel. Um, Treader
Excavating was the apparent low bidder at a total uh construction cost of 92,000. Staff is recommending the award to Treer Excavating for the south portion of this alley also. >> Okay. Thank you,
Commissioners. Any comments, questions? Mr. Chair, I'd make a recommendation to approve the or approve the award uh for Ronald Street to Paul Street uh to Treer Excavating. >> Second motion. Is there a second? Sounds
like there's a second. >> Any further discussion? >> Hearing none. Roll call, please. >> Bailis, >> yes. >> Jay, >> yes. >> Wasau, >> yes. Penguin. >> Yes. Motion carries.
All right. Item C, authorization to solicit bids for 2026 galvanized water service line replacement projects numbers one and two 2026 city street resurfacing reconstruction projects and northeast
Brainard phase one. That's a mouthful. So Paul, please take it from there. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um so staff is seeking um commission approval to go out for bids for our two larger galvanized water service line replacement projects
as the chair uh kind of read those off. Um our project number one is in Northeast Brainer. Um we're calling it Northeast Brainard phase one. That's uh service line replacements on Gillis Avenue, 1st Avenue Northeast and Second Avenue Northeast. Project two is the
2026 galvanized service project that is related to the city's street reconstruction and resurfacing program. Um, Bolton Mink has completed final plans and specs. Those were submitted to the Department of Health on March 31st for certification.
Um, we're looking for uh authorization to bid those projects. Project number one's estimated cost is coming in at $841,880 and project two is coming in at 1,318,955. We would open bids on um our recommendation is to open bids on May
12th, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. for projects numbers 1 and two. And from there, we would bring an award recommendation back to the commission at their May meeting. Okay. Thank you.
Any commissioner comments, questions? >> Mr. Chair, may I make a motion to recommend the authorization to solicit bids for the 2026 galvanized water service line replacement projects one and two? Okay, >> we have a motion. Is there a second?
Second. >> All right, there's a second motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? >> Paul, I had a question. Uh, we've talked about this in previous meetings. So, just with this entire process of of assessing, identifying all of these
projects and then we're allocated a certain dollar amount for per year. uh does everything seem to be falling in line with what we are anticipating and uh if you just maybe want to speak to that again I think just for the benefit of uh uh existing you know the
commissioners also maybe some newer commissioners I think it might not be such a bad idea. >> Yeah. So um back in 2023 the the legislature appropriated $250 million uh to go to public water systems for galvanized service replacements. This
was kind of a match to some of the funds that came out of the the federal government through IIGJA or the infrastructure and jobs act. Um so what they do so through the process so we apply for this money uh we get on what's
called the Minnesota Department of Health's project priority list. So every year we have to submit an application to the project priority list identifying how many service lines we want to replace, the estimated costs of those replacements. um and they go through the
process of um seeing how much money is available uh for the PPL for projects and um you know at the first go around I think we asked for around 6.75 million this year um through the process of looking at the total statewide need they
whittleled us down to about 2.675 675 million this year. Um, and that is tried uh to give Brainer Public Utilities if this funding continues on um through the next 10 years that we would be able to replace all of our known and unknown galvanized service lines over that
10-year period. So, that's where that $2.675 million number comes from. That's about uh that would say that we have about $27 million worth of galvanized service line replacements over the next 10 years. And so, um, after that point,
the project gets pushed forward into the intended use plan, and that's something that's administered by the public facilities authority. They're the ones that administer these funds to the city. So, once we're on the intended use plan, that's when the funds become available and we can construct the projects and
get reimbursement um, from those funds. So, this year we have 2.675 million. Uh I think all the costs together including the two contracts we just awarded and these two estimates is right around 2.4 million. If we start getting towards the end of the year um we'll work with
Bolton and Mink to identify um a few more maybe in that northeast area to try to get agreements signed and use the rest of that funding. >> Thank you for that. As it relates to the timing of reimbursement, is this something that we do incur these expenses? So, we have it budgeted and
then we do receive reimbursements, I assume. >> Yeah, there's there's an application process for every um pay voucher that we pay the contractor. We work with the PFA to submit those um and get reimbursement. There's a little bit of a timeline process, but it's usually
within I think 30 to 45 days is when we >> get the money back. >> Okay. Uh the only other question I have just as it relates to um when these are installed and maybe this is just more of a question uh city brainer Brainer
public utilities but when a new water man or new water service is installed are we doing anything to just document is there any construction observation that takes place either by a consultant or city staff? Uh I'm just curious about
the documentation side of things. Yeah. So, Bolton and Mink um with their professional services agreements that we currently have, they're um slated to do the construction observation um during that time they'll also be there's about probably 15 to 20 agreements that are
still kind of outstanding. >> And a lot of times when people see work going on, um the inspector or a staff member from Bolton Mink or even a water service uh water service worker from BPU will be able to get that agreement signed. And so we've we've tried five or
six different ways to get a hold of people to get agreements signed. Um and there's about 15 to 20 of them that are still outstanding. And so um it's kind of a it's a little bit of an iterative process to get through a full project. Um and it'll be that way every year um
unless we find a better way to get a hold of people. So but yes, uh Bolton Mink is on um contract to provide construction observation for this project for both of these projects. Awesome. Great to hear that. And the reason I asked just uh I guess from a
commission standpoint is is um you know sometimes we just encounter you know maybe an aging water service line and and maybe there's a little uncertainty when it was put in or how it was put in. But um I think it's just nice for all of us to hear what our process is and uh
just um you know have have things in place. I kind of think of uh the push for the construction details and and our move for standardization and everything too. So >> nice nice to hear everything's in place.
>> Okay, with that is uh I think we're under discussion, right? Is there's a motion in the second? >> Correct. >> Okay, any other discussion? >> Hearing none. Roll call. >> Bailis, >> yes. >> Jake, >> yes. Waso.
>> Yes. >> Hangland. >> Yes. That motion passes. Okay. Any other items to discuss, Danny or Paul? >> Nope. I think we're good. >> Okay.
>> Any any other commissioners have questions or comments? >> Sir. >> Nope. >> No. >> Everybody ready to start their Friday weekend plans? >> Okay. All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved.
>> Second. >> Motion in a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. I suppose we better roll call that, too. Roll call, please. >> Bailis, >> yes. >> Jay, >> yes. >> Waso, >> yes. >> Penglin, >> yes. >> All right, meeting adjourned. Thank you
everybody. >> Thanks. Thanks, Misty. >> Have a nice weekend. >> You too. here.