 Brad Town here in the office, John Quinn and Dave Sawyer joining us virtually and Flo Smith. Any public comment? Additions or changes to the agenda? No. All right. We've got Otter Creek with the Fisher Road culvert. You're free. Sure. The idea, Rob, is for you to, they had a few questions about the options and what they would do for us and what we need to do from the town perspective, what that means to us for those options. Sure. So I guess the short answer is that basically all the precast companies are really busy right now. And so given the time of the year, if we want to get the project done this year, one option is to direct purchase from a particular vendor. We work with Contact. They do these types of structures all throughout the state. That's who we kind of designed and built the specification around. But the way that the design documents were put together, there wasn't any preclusion to use one particular vendor. So like under the normal bid process, it would go out to bid the way that it is right now. Contractors would be able to ask other precast suppliers for quotes and they'd be able to pick which one they would use, provided they provide a structure that meets the same shape and size that we've designed. But the general consensus from the contractors and the general consensus from the contractors and from the precast suppliers is that there just isn't enough time to go through the process. So if we open up bids in a couple of weeks for this project and it takes a couple of weeks to get a contract signed, then it takes another four weeks or so to get all the drawings and stuff pulled together from their precast supplier because they won't lock any of that in until they have a signed contract. So you're kind of moving very linearly along that path. So that would push us into middle of August at the earliest before they would start fabrication on the structure. And what we're hearing is that it's anywhere from 12 to 20 weeks depending on what other projects they have in which the vendor you're using. How long does that concrete have to cure? So they take samples and there's an independent testing process as part of what we put together. But typically they want it to cure at least seven days before they ship it. Oftentimes it's closer to 14 days minimum before they ship the pieces because you can run the risk of getting some damage in transit. So I think that's kind of why we looked at the option of direct purchase. I got a quote for Vince and Tom from the vendor that we work with regularly and the price has gone up over $100,000 on the structure from them. We're being told that that's somewhat COVID related that it's all kind of part of the general escalation and material prices that we've seen. This is Dave Sawyer. I'm on the phone. I'm just curious. Did I hear it was $100,000 increase? It was. And we're being told that it's kind of COVID related to steel and a lot of the other components that are built into that. I can say that in my line of work for what we do like utility infrastructure projects we've seen anywhere from 20% material increases to 75% or more on height and fittings and things like that. So it's not unreasonable but it's hard when you don't have anything to compare it to. And so I thought it was important to at least have this conversation because I think it provides a different kind of response on when the project can get done. There is an option that the project can get done this year if the town direct purchases this structure. We have the permits in place for it now. The direct purchase of the structure, we basically parallel track the public bidding process for the installation with the purchase of it. And that way we shorten the window by about eight weeks really because we take the bid piece out of it and the contract signing and all of that out of it. And you basically move forward with the purchase of the structure. The risk is that you basically use the contingency that we had assigned for the project with the structure purchase. So if for some reason the rest of the bid comes in high, you'd be over the project budget that you guys had established. Go ahead Dave. I have another question though. Being a contractor for many years. If we do a direct purchase on that, do you see any impact from the bidding from the other contractors that would bid this job that they're not making their markup on their end? Because I know a lot of contracts will bid the materials with the markup. And if we do a direct purchase, how is that going to impact our labor costs on the other part of this project? I would add to Will, would it reduce a markup maybe as well? That's $100,000 more. If we direct purchase it, would that eliminate some of similar, some of the markup that could potentially be there on that piece? Those are both really good points and questions. I think from my perspective on the face value, we see markup anywhere from like five to 10% on these types of structures. So in general you'd expect to see a reduction in it. But it kind of complicates the process when you take the material component piece out of their hands because then they're dependent on the town and the pre-gast supplier rather than just the pre-gast supplier. And just from like a strictly contract standpoint, it's always nicer, you know, in theory it's great to save that markup, but it's nicer because they have control over the pre-gast supplier. They're dictating when payment's occurring. They're dictating when it's being delivered to the site. And it's just easier to handle. So what I found is actually that contractors keep a little bit of markup. It's definitely not the 5% to 10%, but they keep some markup because they still have to coordinate and schedule and do all those things, which is why they get markup on it anyway. So there is that component. We had a pre-bid meeting for this. David, to go back to your comment. And we had significant interest in the project. The general comments from the contractors were two things. One, everybody agreed that if we kept the culvert or the structure in the project that it wouldn't get built this year. That you're just not going to be able to finish it this year. So they understood that if they wanted to do it this year, it could be taken out and that would be a path forward. And nobody seemed to really question whether or not that was a reasonable approach. They also said, you know, if you keep it in, you know, they can solicit from other pre-gas suppliers throughout New England. It's a large structure. It's something that they could work through and talk with others about. But there's no guarantee you'd get a better price than what the context proposed. What kind of liability does it open the town up to with us ordering our materials? I mean, there seems like there's a lot of room for our issues as a result. Potentially. I mean, there's a lot of negative that could go out of company. There could. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I've done town direct purchases of different products, including culverts. Not one this size, but some bigger box culverts. And usually the issue is that if the contractor can't, it's ready for something because there's an agreed upon delivery date. Components are going to come this day. And then for whatever reason, the supplier fails to meet that date. And then you run the risk of a delay claim from this contractor saying, hey, I've got the site. I have all my equipment here. I'm doing all this stuff. And the contractors feel that they're scheduled. That's somewhat avoidable in this current situation because we're actively out to bid. We haven't bid the project yet. We can clarify to contractors what the expectations are. And that basically they would have the responsibility to directly coordinate with them regarding delivery and that you simply have just jumpstarted this process for them. So I think the risk is a little bit lower there in this particular case. Brad had a question. How many suppliers are in the New England area that could supply this culvert? So we've worked, I've done three of similar size with three different companies. I think there's maybe five or six that are capable of this type of... I mean, to be honest, all the pre-casters are capable of it. A lot of them just don't do it because they don't come around as much. And they don't like to have to deal with the form work and everything else that comes with these types of projects. But yeah, I've done at least three with different suppliers. Go ahead, Dave. Well, I was just, if we were to direct buy, is it possible that we... Well, I'm sure it's possible, but to get us an ironclad delivery date on this thing with some contingent said if it isn't. Because I can see if a contractor moves his equipment in and we get delayed by a week or two that they may want to charge for their equipment being on site, not operating. Is there a way that we can eliminate that possibility from happening? You asked the question that I asked last week and the answer I got was not really everything's so in flux right now with what they're getting for material deliveries. They weren't willing to lock in a date. In fact, they just simply gave us a range if you look at that quote on what it would be. As I mentioned at the beginning, kind of work in the schedule out. If it's at the furthest end of their quote range, we're still going to be able to do the project this year. If you did a direct purchase. I mean the other option, and this whole conversation is time related because the other option is you could kind of suspend, if you will, the bid phase for this purchase. And then we could just put that on hold for a couple of weeks. We could go get other quotes for precast, but there's no guarantee that it'll be less or faster lead time and then you run the risk of losing that two weeks. And I mentioned that only because the contractors that are looking to install this were kind of saying, you know, it is Vermont, the weather gets nasty in October. And you're running that issue of if you lose it two weeks, then maybe you're no longer in the dry season, maybe you're in the wet fall. And it just, it adds to their risk, which would add cost to them too. How big is this, I mean, how big are the pieces that are put together? They're roughly, well, the 30 foot span, those are single pieces. And they're seven feet or so wide, maybe a little narrower. That's right here. Is there any, how problematic would it be to store them on site? If we order them, if we were to purchase them, it's done. The contractor's not ready. They're delivered. There's no real room there for that and be able to do the other work that we need to do. And the other pieces that typically, and this kind of goes to what Justin was saying earlier, when the contractors deliver those, they're very coordinated. They come with the right pieces in the right order. So they'll show up with one truck at a time and it's a kind of orchestrated ordeal where the truck will back up. They'll take the piece off that they need, set it down with the crane, give that truck out of there, move the next piece in. So they're fairly efficient with how they set it. The actual process of setting, grouting this in, it can be done in a day for even a structure that's as long as this, 128 feet long. That's the whole advantage of this kind of precast formula versus the old cast and place style structures. But it's got to be well organized and well thought out, otherwise it can be problematic. The footings are poured? The footings are poured in place. They gave an option for basically a shelf or a prefab footing as an option. But it's set up for basically cast and place footings. So is that the $135,000 on the scope? Correct. So our actual price is $459,000. That's what we're talking about today. You could have the option at your choice to lock in the $135,000, but I don't think it's necessary. The footings are just 9 feet wide and 128 feet long. And they still have to be poured. That shell is actually kind of a unique system. They come in pieces that have PVC slots in the frame so that all the rebar heights and everything are exactly where they need to be. So you stack these shells down and then you just slide the rebar through and tie it together. It does work pretty slick. What they said was that the contractor could have the option to purchase that from them, the foot-in piece. And that lead time is a lot less than the actual arch. The arch is really what's driving the step. The other pieces, in that 20-week range, we're still close on whether or not we would have the ability to pave this year. Because once you get into deer season, basically, and you're working between deer season and Thanksgiving, it's hit or miss. We've certainly done it. We paved last year on the sewer project. It was 55 degrees. We got deer season here for a couple of days. We got the paving in. It was fine. But there are certain requirements when you pave. It's got to be above 40 temperatures rising. You want to put good asphalt down. So there could be the potential that if that schedule was delayed at all and you went with a direct purchase that we still might not be able to pave that road back. We might have to put back just gravel surface for this year, too. But it would be open. But it would be open. So if the town were to purchase the culvert, could we then pass off the, that would get the culvert on the schedule? Then we could pass off the coordination to the contractor? We could. Yeah. Because we're out in the bid right now, we can revise the way the plans and documents are set up through a denim. So in fact, I haven't issued anything for this because we've had kind of this, we wanted to have a discussion with contractors. See what the appetite was for the work this year. And really everybody said they're looking for work this fall. We had, I think, I don't want to misquote it, but it was eight or nine people attend that pre-bid meeting. And we have at least that many plan holders at this point. So there's certain interest, definitely interested in doing it this fall. But we just wanted, they wanted to be realistic about it. They were pretty upfront, you know, on the schedule piece. And they're absolutely right that if we kept it in, it wouldn't happen. So we want the culvert open this year, we have to pre-purchase or have, the town's going to have to purchase it. And if we were, if it's not an issue, then we just go through the regular bid process. Correct. What's the likelihood of a decrease in cost if we then hold off and just carry us on? I wish I would know the answer to that. That's a good question. I tell you, right now I've seen where lumber was running 1,500, 1,000 and now it's like 13. So I mean, I think it peed, but I don't know how I'm hearing the concrete, the possibility of concrete increase and even more is likely from all the reports I'm reading. And I think it depends on the types of projects you're doing. I just opened Bids today, I had nine bidders on roughly $300,000 utility project and my engineer's estimate was over a year old and I had four out of the nine bidders under my engineer's estimate because everybody was looking for work this fall. And to get nine bidders on a $300,000 project, I mean, that's a lot of interest in a relatively small job. But it depends, you know, then you get to this point where you're fairly large, you're not going to have a lot of those smaller contractors bidding it. There's only a handful, so I don't want to kind of compare them directly. But it's interesting to see projects that are falling through because the project costs are exceeding bond authorizations, they're exceeding what boards have approved. So those are happening and contractors are looking to fill their schedule this fall, so it's kind of that balance. So my other concern would be if we commit to buying this and we've got $460,000 out and all of a sudden it's way over budget, right? Can we get our estimates? That is my primary concern. How can we protect ourselves against that? The way you protect yourselves against that is that your investment isn't actually the $465,000 right now. They require to lock in and order the rebar and the components that go with the concrete. They require I think it's about $75,000. It's a percentage of that total cost. And that allows them to purchase the materials that they need to build the arch. So what we put one scenario we could do is the town could commit to that 75 number. We can open bids here in the next two to three weeks on the installation of it. Know what the total project cost is and if for some reason it's way above our estimate you want to put the project on hold because you need to look at other options or funds, your risk would be that $75,000 I think. And that's relative because the structure's not necessarily going to change. How long are our permits good for? That's a good question. I believe most state permits are valid for two years now. I don't think it would have to be two years. I'm never sure. I mean we just had a project. We have Irene come through. They were the special, I mean, so usually like for stream alteration type work, they don't let you work after October 15th. And for this case they understood that the town was looking to get it done this year and we got approval to work after October 15th with the permit. So they understood. I think they're getting an extension if it was necessary wouldn't be as much of an issue. Well, I mean, once the footings are poured, then the only working in the stream bed would be just setting the coal. Correct. And it all depends how the contractors go about doing it, but usually they'll rough in the flow channel and then do the finish work inside after the thing's set. And the structure that size, you can run skid steers and other equipment underneath it fairly easily. So 75,000 would take and get us locked into the materials for the coal work. And then we'd just be on the hook for the, what was it? 400 and some odd thousand for the coal work. 459,77. Minus 75. So 300 and 75. So when the coal work was done, do the companies have a place? For some reason, if they start forming up the coal work and it doesn't pan out that we can do it this year, are they going to be able to have a place to store it? So they said they could store it for up to a year at, I believe at no cost to the town. They run into space issues when things last more than a year and they're, so at that point they'd have to charge like a rent fee. But they have an area to store it. Okay. So then they would still be the company that built it would still be in charge and would still have control over the delivery. Correct. Yeah. And what we could do is we could set the contract up so that the winning contractor is responsible for coordinating with this person who's already been involved with the material purchase and getting it all delivered. So hopefully that's not an issue at all. No matter what, we're going to be out, I mean this year or next, if it's never going to cost us anything to store it, we're going to be out, we're going to be into them for the $75,000. I assume that they'll want to be paid when it's finished. Yeah, at some point they'll actually start the fabrication, but so the $75,000 basically allows them to purchase the reinforcing and there's a special match that they use for these arches. And then the other pieces it allows them to finish the production shop drawings. So they have to produce their stamp shop drawing for it and there's an investment on that end. That process is somewhere between four and six weeks. So if you told them tomorrow that they were good to go, somewhere between four and six weeks for them to get to a point where they're going to complete that first step and then theoretically after that they can move towards fabrication of the components. We can certainly fine tune that schedule with them and tell them what we would expect and we can work it around the bid phase for this larger project. So in here it says one or more of the products quoted here and is non-standard and not returnable. The entertainment of one-third of this item is required and must be received prior to the commencement of any performance by contact. So 75,000 to order that material you're talking about but then once this total of a third comes into play. I think that's the number that they agreed to for that third. I think the third is their standard contract condition. I wish I had that answer to you but I think they were saying to me the commitment that they need is the 75,000 because it requires them to order that national. And they were trying to work with the town. Their standard procurement policy is one-third. That's what they would do if they gave it to the contractor. But I guess the short answer is they won't be able to fabricate anything for six to eight weeks after you give them the authorization. How long before bid opening on the labor? We're opening on the eighth currently but I would probably give them a few extra days since I was hoping to have a better answer for them or a clearer answer for them before now. The eighth is a Friday, I think. So I would probably push it to... Why would you need to give them any extra time to put it in or take it out type of thing? I think a lot of them are going to question where they put their money and their risk to Justin's comment earlier about whether or not you'd save the markup or that I think that they all have different experiences with pre-casters and that directly ties to what they carry for pricing in their bid. Yeah, was there a general consensus about who should build it? I think they've all worked with contact. Contact produces a lot of structures for the state but we didn't really get into the conversation about who should build it. There's a reputation there that they can go on now, right? Oh, certainly, yeah, absolutely. And the idea to ask them, I said, is there somebody around here that can do this in eight weeks instead of 16 to 20? And they said, absolutely not. So I think everybody's kind of in the same boat timing-wise. So select for it. I don't think if we want to open the branches here, I don't think we really have an option. I think we need to move ahead and authorize $75,000 to start. I concur. Was that a motion in a second? No, that was neither. That was just- That makes pretty good. Yeah. So, well, let me fix what I just said. Let's make a motion that we authorize $75,000 to start the process of the precast. Second. Just a second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. So now the question is how well are you going to be able to keep this moving on? I think I have- I actually have the addendum to the contract kind of pre-prepared. And I basically wrote it up two ways. One if we kept it in and one if we didn't. So I just need to make some modifications to that. I would expect that that would go to contractors tomorrow. And that's how we'll keep that moving along. This has to respond to this precast supplier. And basically say that the board's authorized this $75,000. Please get this into your schedule. And then I'll work with Vince to just make sure we don't pass that next milestone with a larger investment. Until we know what we're going to have. Whether or not we have a contract. I mean, if work is short for large contractors, you know what I mean. Yeah. And there's a lot of interest in this. A project like this comes down to what their concerns are related to, you know, if we have a flash kind of rainstorm and how it impacts how they did, you know. The reason you see such variation in contractor's bids, when they're bidding the same exact plans, the same exact specifications, the variation is often their assessment of risk and time commitment. A lot of their experience. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, I think if we get a, if we get a half dozen bids, you know, the other, everyone's going to know how many bids we're getting overall. Not how many bids, but generally how many people are potentially bidding. I think I'm not worried about hitting our overall cost at this point, even though prices have gone up some, I think contractors are paying attention enough to know what's going on in the market. And they were all here for that pre-bid meeting, kind of talking amongst themselves about projects that have fallen through this year because of, you know, being over budget. Right. Okay, anything else? Move to adjourned. Second. Any discussion, all in favor? Aye. For adjourned. Aye. Anyone?