Native Plant Nursery Project Remains on Hold

Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Board Meeting - January 19, 2017

Highlights from the Meeting:

Most of the MWRD Board Meeting was spent discussing the report on the rejection of a bid by Industria, Inc. on an RFP to Design, Build, Operate and Maintain a Native Plant and Tree Nursery at the Hanover Park Water Reclamation Plant, Fischer Farm. (Agenda Item #9) 

• This contract had been previously discussed at the board meeting of 1/5/17 and had been deleted from that agenda without any action due to concerns with the contract. 
• During Public Comment at today's meeting three speakers presented information about the proposed contract - 2 of whom were participants in the sole bid for the project. 
• The sole bid for the project was for $3.6m whereas the estimated cost of the project previously determined by MWRD had been $2.5m and thus it had been decided to reject the bid. 
• Mr. St. Pierre, MWRD Ex. Dir., stated that after further analysis it was decided the project would be divided into 2 contracts - one for construction of the nursery and the other for maintenance and operation of the nursery, and new RFPs would be prepared.
• Industria, Inc., the sole bidder on the project, was in attendance and stated that they had done 4 previous projects with MWRD and that their initial bid for this project had been $5m but after discussion with MWRD staff to more clearly define the scope of the project they had reduced their bid estimate to $3.6m.
• Comm. Spyropoulos asked if there had been any consideration given to leasing the land to a commercial nursery and having them run the nursery at their own cost.
• Comm. Shore was concerned that dividing the project into 2 contracts and rebidding would delay the project for another year.
• Comm. Walsh had concerns about the accuracy of the initial estimated cost for the project. 

Due to the continued concerns raised the Board wanted to defer this item for another 2 weeks so the staff could do further investigation. Since the item was presented on the agenda as a “report on rejection of a proposal” and by their rules a report cannot be deferred, the board approved a motion to give Mr. St. Pierre, the Ex. Dir., permission to delete the item from the agenda. Presumably it will come back to the Board at a subsequent meeting.

Other Item of Note:

During Public Comment - Mr. Smith, who has a bee keeping business, made a case for partnering with the MWRD to have bee hives on MWRD property. He has been working on projects throughout the city establishing bee hives. The Board expressed interest. 
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Observer - Cynthia Schilsky                                                             Length of Meeting - 2 hours