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Elkader Council discusses error on Carter Street, Keystone Bridge costs

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By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register

 

The latest Elkader City Council agenda included two important project updates regarding Carter Street and the Keystone Bridge. 

 

Beginning with Carter Street, Jack Huck from MSA Professional Services provided an update, revealing the project contractor is currently a month behind schedule. There is a growing concern that workers keep leaving the site to go to other projects, something that has occurred at least three times, according to city administrator Jennifer Cowsert.  

 

Huck said, “hopefully [the contractor] will pick up some steam here in the later phases and get  back on track.” 

 

The statement prompted council member Daryl Koehn to ask “is there something we can do to encourage that? It seems like everybody else is more important than us.” 

 

According to Huck, despite attempts to evaluate the schedule, “ultimately, you can’t do anything until the end, after construction is complete, unfortunately. At the end is when you can go after liquidated damages.” 

 

Koehn replied simply, “we already know that’s a farce.”  

 

Cowsert commented on the issue of liquidated damages at length, in a separate interview. 

 

“Most or all big contracts have those as an incentive to keep contractors on schedule. However, legally, we were advised that having an early completion bonus is better (more legal) than punitive liquidated damages,” she explained. “The reason Daryl said it was a farce is because we had a project before where we wanted to get liquidated damages and were advised, at that time, that legally we should not pursue it. But each situation is different, and I don’t think we would have a problem this time because the hospital is losing revenue from the MRI machine not being able to get there, and patients have to go to Guttenberg, but that would help make a case for ‘damages.’”

 

As for getting the contractors back on schedule, Koehn wanted to know if there were restrictions on the hours the contractor could work on the project, attempting to find some way of speeding it up. According to Huck, the contractor was informed the preferred hours were between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., but they weren’t told they “absolutely can’t work outside that.” 

 

Beyond the contractor being behind, Huck also informed the council there was an error during paving, which caused a shift in the center line six inches toward the river side of the road. This brought the safety issue—shared by residents at previous council meetings when Carter Street was being voted on—back to the forefront. 

 

Those safety concerns ranged from losing some of the area between the curb and sidewalk to how that would affect snow getting piled on the sidewalk, as well as feeling it was unsafe for a sidewalk to be that close to the street. 

 

Cowsert detailed what happened, stating, “basically, the paver is programmed with certain information that the sub-contractor gets from the engineering plans. The plans have various lines on them (ROW, utilities, paving bounds, etc.) and apparently the incorrect lines were programmed in. This wasn’t caught until after it was paved and the surveyor was setting up to survey the next phase.”

 

At the meeting, Huck commented that, while there was an error, if one had to be made, he was glad it was toward the north and not the south since the south side of the road has the steeper driveways. 

 

Council member Bob Hendrickson did not concur, noting, “The property owners aren’t glad.” He reminded Huck and the council how big of an issue this was before the project started because residents’ exact concern “was not losing any space in their sidewalks.” 

 

“They ended up getting screwed in the end anyway,” Koehn commented.

 

This statement is compounded by the fact that, after council member  Tony Hauber inquired how common this error was in paving, Huck replied that he personally has never had this issue and it’s rather uncommon. 

 

A frustrated council, led by Koehn, was adamant that the “contractor should knock on every door and explain what happened and explain that it was their fault.”

 

“You can come here now and tell us ‘well, oops, it happened, nothing we can do now,’ and I understand that, but that was one of the biggest issues we had and that contractor just fouled up and they need to meet with each one of those property owners and explain that to them” Koehn told Huck.

 

Huck noted the contractor has taken ownership of the error and agreed with Koehn’s sentiment, but wanted some correspondence prior to the contractor notifying residents so there were no errors in communication. 

 

Hendrickson also agreed with Koehn, stating, “I think we’d have a better outcome and would be more positive if there was some communication with each of those property owners about what happened.” 

 

In a separate interview, Hendrickson commented further: “I am not happy with the delay or the misalignment. I am interested in those residents whose property has been affected. I want to know what they would like to see as a resolution.”

 

Council member Peggy Lane also provided a statement on the issue, saying, “The delays being experienced on the Carter Street project are unfortunate. I am sympathetic to the property owners who are inconvenienced, but also feel some understanding of the challenges facing the contractors’ needs to be factored into that. Labor shortages are being experienced nationwide.”

 

One question that arose was why the road wasn’t re-done and the center line re-set. While this seemed like an obvious solution, Hauber noted the solution “comes at a cost.” 

 

“The mistake is incredibly unfortunate, and we are still working through ways to resolve the issue without causing more harm. It might seem obvious to some to say tear it up and start over, but that comes at a cost too. It extends the construction time of this project immensely, which is an incredible burden on our citizens,” he said. “As of right now, I am awaiting the options the engineering and construction teams offer, and then we will have to talk to the citizens and see which options they feel will best rectify the situation.” 

 

Cowsert stated in an email exchange that “I do understand the residents concern and I am very sorry this happened, but I don’t think it is realistic to remove and re-pave. That would be a burden to the residents.”

 

“I assure you it was an honest mistake and no intent on anyone’s part. It is just an unfortunate situation,” she added.

 

Keystone Bridge

When it comes to the Keystone Bridge project, the concern once again returned to cost. That’s especially related to engineering cost, a growing concern since the accepted bid from CJ Moyna & Sons, LLC and Taylor Construction Inc. added $400,000 to the overall construction cost and pushed the number of working days from 120 to 160. 

 

At the meeting, Koehn continued to express concern about those engineering costs, noting how they have risen even as no work has been done. He expects the cost to continue to go up as a result of the accepted bid going up, along with the added working days.

 

“These engineering costs scare me and we don’t even know much we’re going to be on the hook for and where are we even going to come up with that money,” Koehn said. 

 

According to Cowsert, the city has already borrowed about $655,000 to cover the engineering costs on the project—a figure she admittedly said was “probably short sided.” 

 

This money was included in the roughly $1.125 million the city borrowed to pay for the new police car, fire truck and street sweeper. It accounts for almost $149,000 of the estimated $248,000 in interest the city will pay over the next 20 years, or until 2041, when it will presumably have it paid off, in part by raising property taxes in the near future. 

 

Koehn’s concern is based on the notion that most engineers get paid 30 percent of the contract amount. Since the Keystone Bridge contract is near $3 million, the city would need to come up with about $380,000 to cover. 

 

While Cowsert doesn’t believe this will be the case, she has not heard back from engineer Julie Neeble. Given that working days increased by 40 days, and since an engineer needs to be on site for those newly added days, there is an expectation the engineering costs will rise. Cowsert said in an interview that the city has $49,000 left over from the $1.125 million it borrowed, but it’s unlikely that will be enough to cover it. 

 

At the meeting, Lane questioned several times how the engineer could raise their cost, while understanding Koehn’s concern, but also acknowledged the lack of options the city has because the project needs to get done, which requires an engineer. 

 

In an interview, Lane added, “I think the engineer would have a hard time justifying increasing their costs just because the bid is higher. They could legitimately claim more days on site to raise the cost, but I don’t believe they would just up their costs without tying it to some concrete service.”

 

Responding to Koehn’s frustration, Hauber said, “I share your frustrations, and if the bid does come back at 30 percent, I will be as frustrated with engineering, and we should demand an explanation for that.” 

 

Hendrickson, while sharing Koehn’s concern, commented, “we don’t know that number yet. I get the concern and everything, but we can drive ourselves crazy speculating. We need to see what it’s going to be and we need to have a problem with them if they try to do that.”

 

Koehn has long expressed concern over the Keystone Bridge project and its rising costs, and according to information obtained from Cowsert, that concern is well founded. 

 

When the project was discussed in 2015, Cowsert said the city was looking at a construction project cost of $820,000, and Koehn’s estimated engineering costs would have been $246,000. That’s far below what has already been spent without reaching the 30 percent figure. 

 

By the time the project got to 2020, attributing a 14 percent increase between 2015 and 2020 in costs and sticking with the same 30 percent rate, that would have been $280,200 for engineering. 

 

Cowsert noted there are three phases with the engineering: preliminary, construction plans and inspection service/contract administration. So far, the city has paid $133,877 for phase 1, $165,000 for phase 2, and then, in phase three, the engineers asked for $355,000.  

 

Hauber stated, “The bridge has to be fixed. End of story right there. It’s the cornerstone of our community. If it costs more, we’re going to have to go to bond if we need more money, and that’s unfortunate.”

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