When the Davis City Council passed this year’s budget – a sobering and eye-opening moment that shows that, even as we move more firmly into recovery, we remain vulnerable to huge budget deficits that grow larger not smaller as we attempt to fix problems such as water and infrastructure and roads that had been unfunded for years during the economic downturn – there was open lament about the lack of public input and engagement.
Both Councilmember Lucas Frerichs and his colleague Rochelle Swanson lamented the lack of public comments and interest in the topic of vital importance.
As one official noted to me privately, they get no interest in the budget, but if the city is cutting down a tree or dealing with the issue of coyotes, the place is packed.
As another sarcastically noted, “Nobody cares about saving $20 million, more interesting to talk endlessly about providing fluoride from helicopters.”
To no surprise, the most-read item of the week was Brett Lee’s guest commentary putting forth his alternative to fluoride that garnered 139 comments. A close second in views was the more surprising hot topic on Friday about the appointment to the UC Presidency of former homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano.
That one caught me off guard. I put it in there with the expectation I was setting the table for a pointed commentary over the weekend that never emerged because the original piece and ensuing comments hit it all.
In retrospect, it had all of the elements to draw a crowd. Napolitano proved as unpopular for the right as she did for the far left, and even those in the middle had little to offer in defense. Plus, there are so many different points of complaint about her.
From my personal standpoint I was pleased the original piece on the sheriff’s department did solidly. The affordable housing had respectable readership, but I was disappointed in the response to wastewater.
It was a long and difficult article, but the bottom line is that the process set forth in the wastewater process may be quite costly to ratepayers. The decision to preclude innovation and other potential points of savings in favor of a three-and-a-half-year-old Charrette Design Process is mindboggling.
The defense that hits on PERC Water’s deficiencies, in my opinion, misses the point that this is about a process not a company. The fact is that we have gone forward with a Charrette Design Process. Yes, that process was locally developed by experts.
But this process occurred in October 2009. To use a different example, what kind of cell phone did you have in October 2009? Did you use a laptop or a tablet? Did you even know what a tablet was? In fact, did you even know what a smart phone was and did you have one?
The world has changed a lot and it is at least possible, conceivable, that technologies and innovations may, keyword, may, make the Charrette Design Process look as obsolete as your 2009 cell phone.
All Brett Lee has been asking for is a process that can allow the innovations of companies to be considered.
But the water issue, like the budget issue, has suffered from punctuated equilibrium. The Vanguard wrote articles in the spring of 2011 as to whether the public was going to become engaged on the water issue. The rates were going to triple, but the public was nowhere to be seen.
Finally in the summer, groups of citizens became involved in the issue. By August 2011, the water issue was probably the biggest issue in town and for a two-month period from September 7 until November 18, the water issue was the biggest issue in town by far, with a piece every single day..
It declined somewhat on November 18, 2011 when a group of students was pepper sprayed, but water remained a hot topic for all of 2012 and through the election this year, when suddenly it has dropped off the map.
Why is that? It is one of the strange abnormalities about the public’s attentiveness. Is the water issue over? Well, that’s an interesting question because Michael Harrington, as the late week article on Friday indicates, is far from done with his lawsuit.
That article could not compete with the hiring of Janet Napolitano. Remarkably, it has received about one-tenth of the readership as the Napolitano piece. That is a strange thing, given how intimately this issue will impact the public.
The issue of bifurcation has come up because the city wants to address the issue of the water rates quickly, because the uncertainty of getting the funding looms large in the ability for the city to get the best possible bond rates that they need to sell rather quickly to finance the water project.
Harriet Steiner, the city attorney, argues in the brief that “bifurcation of this action will result in a more efficient resolution of this litigation, preserve judicial resources, and minimize undue prejudice to the City.”
The filing by the city notes, “The City committed in the JPA to a ‘firm schedule’ to commence construction of the Project by late 2013.”
The city now needs to authorize the issuance and sale of bonds or certificates of participation to fund its share of surface water project capital costs by August 15, 2013, with the JPA Board awarding a contract to design and commence construction by September 30, 2013.
The city attorney notes, “The bonds or certificates of participation will be secured by the City’s water rates. If the City misses its deadlines under the JPA or is required to revisit its new rates as a result of this litigation, the City will be liable to Woodland for costs incurred and will also have to reimburse Woodland for its reasonable costs for having to redesign the Project.”
The city argues, “This lawsuit impacts and will impair or delay Project financing and the construction of the Project and subject the City to additional costs under the JP A if the validity of the City’s water rates is not resolved in the next few months. In addition, economy and efficiency will be promoted by bifurcating the Petition for Writ of Mandate concerning the water rates from the other causes of action.”
In his response, Mr. Harrington argues, “The requested relief, if granted, would do nothing to further judicial efficiency. Moreover, such relief would severely prejudice the rights of Plaintiffs by depriving them of the right to make a complete presentation with cross examination of witnesses.”
He adds, “The City is attempting to have the issues decided on an incomplete administrative record based on documents of the City’s selection.”
This is a key issue, and the ruling by Judge Maguire in two weeks will go a long way toward determining the city rates. But the response from the public is again crickets.
Finally we have the FamiliesFirst case, a huge regional issue. We have a lawsuit filed on behalf of an employee who was concerned with the impact of staffing cuts on the safety of the children and staff, and because he vocalized his concerns, he was laid off.
Those concerns are at the genesis of the crisis at hand and yet, the first comment makes a derisive swipe at employees and whistleblowers without so much as having read the content. It’s appalling and the response was nonsensical.
But the public at least here on the Vanguard has been surprisingly unengaged on an issue that should be of great concern to this community.
Last week the big sellers were plastic bags and green waste containerization. These issues sell; the core fiscal issues not so much. If the council wants to engage the public – which they should – good luck. It’s a tough sell unless there is an imminent threat to raise people’s rates.
So my suggestion is, next budget discussion, include a small sales tax proposal and see if that changes the calculus somewhat.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Nice tie-together David.
As far as the waste water issue, why hasn’t someone asked the local experts what their 2013 recommendation(s) would be??
David.. you purport to want transparency… public unions are fighting pension disclosures for PERS retirees..
Yet, I believe I’ve asked a couple of times, when you are discussing Davis employees’ compensation, why the City only publishes (on web-site) general employee (inc. PS) contracts… why are the CM’s, Dept heads, etc. compensation NOT on the City website, nor published by you thru a PRA? Is this a ‘deal’ you made with Mr P?
I have never gotten a good answer on that.
What exactly do you want to see? the mou or their compensation by employee?
“However there is no doubt – none – zero – zilch – that if the roles were reversed, there would be a completely different reaction from those who are claiming that Zimmerman should have been convicted.”
As well as those who think he should have been acquitted, except for the defense attorneys and maybe some prosecutors.
SOD: I’m not recalling any black on black crimes I have covered in Yolo, but since I’ve covered a lot, it’s possible I did but it doesn’t stand out. I haven’t covered a lot of crimes by African Americans anyway.
… I think you’re on the wrong thread here….
Crap, thanks.
You can delete these.
[quote]The decision to preclude innovation and other potential points of savings in favor of a three-and-a-half-year-old Charrette Design Process is mindboggling.[/quote]
I know nothing about the history of this. Did they commit to this plan 3 and half years ago? If so my question would be why did they do that so far out? Did they think the project was going to get started sooner?
When I read your initial piece I also thought of the cell phone analogy, if I knew I wasn’t going to need a cell phone for 4 more years I wouldn’t commit to a model available today.
[quote]Both Councilmember Lucas Frerichs and his colleague Rochelle Swanson lamented the lack of public comments and interest in the topic of vital importance[/quote]
I wonder if school board members feel the same way….
On the water rates, David wrote: “Why is that? It is one of the strange abnormalities about the public’s attentiveness. Is the water issue over? Well, that’s an interesting question because Michael Harrington, as the late week article on Friday indicates, is far from done with his lawsuit.”
Everyone knows that Measure I is not legally final, right? The Measure has a clause making an affirmative vote for the Measure also “subject to” the adoption of rates conforming to Prop 218. Since the rates litigation has not been decided, the rates are not final. Measure I is not final.
[quote]What exactly do you want to see? the mou or their compensation by employee? [/quote]The contracts… just the same as for the other employee groups… no more, no less.
Ok
B. Nice said . . .
[i]”I know nothing about the history of this. [b]Did they commit to this plan 3 and half years ago? If so my question would be why did they do that so far out? Did they think the project was going to get started sooner? [/b]
When I read your initial piece I also thought of the cell phone analogy, if I knew I wasn’t going to need a cell phone for 4 more years I wouldn’t commit to a model available today.”[/i]
I’m not sure that there is a crystal clear answer to your bolded question, but if we look at the record of what happened to the Charrette Plan from January 2010 (when the Charrette report was published) and now, there is a very clear pattern. My sense of that pattern is that Sataff wanted the wastewater treatment procurement to go one way and the Council wanted it to go a different way . . . and every time Council gave Staff an answer that Staff didn’t like the process got longer.
Once the Charreette Plan Report was presented to Council, Staff began the process of creating a specific design of Staff’s choosing that would the expected to be procured by the City through a Design-Bid-Build procurement process. The first step was a July 27, 2010 [b]Wastewater Treatment Alternatives Workshop[/b] with Council. Thanks to the long, hard, painful work of Sue Greenwald, the Council was very focused on cost, and the Staff Report for the Alternatives Workshop reflected that as follows, [i]“Based on prior City Council direction, staff has been evaluating a number of alternatives to the original Wastewater Treatment Plant Improvement Project, [u]with the goal of ensuring the most cost-effective solution[/u] to meeting the increased regulatory requirements imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board.”[/i]
Despite Staff’s strong support of a D-B-B process, Council did not give them a green light for beginning a D-B-B procurement, and as a result the next step in the process took place four months later (on November 16, 2010), and [u]once again Staff’s desired path of a D-B-B procurement of the Charrette Plan was not okayed by Council[/u]. In fact, it was at that meeting that the beginnings of Council’s orientation toward Design Build (DB) formally surfaced as acknowledged by the March 1, 2011 Staff Report, [i]“On November 16th, 2010, staff presented Council with two viable projects for meeting our wastewater discharge requirements. Council accepted staff’s recommendation to advance work on the Davis WWTP Upgrade project and to advance regionalization discussions with Woodland to identify if the proposed regional treatment facility could become more fiscally attractive. Council members also expressed an interest in the potential of contract operations with and without private financing for the project.” [/i]
Three and a half months later the March 1, 2011 Council discussion failed to reach a conclusion and was continued to April 19, 2011, where the Staff Report very clearly outlined for Council the differences between D-B-B vs. DB, as well as between the two project/procurement control choices Prescriptive vs. Performance Criteria. Staff also very clearly declared their preference for Prescriptive and D-B-B. Council’s decision that night was to choose Performance Criteria and DB.
After that April 19, 2011 decision by Council choosing a DB procurement based on performance criteria, one company offered to provide the City’ with a detailed fiscal analysis showing exactly how and why a solution to Davis’ wastewater problems could be built for at least $20 million less than the $95 million estimate (that Staff had created with Brown and Caldwell and Carollo) and run for $1 million less O&M costs per year. Staff quickly shuttled that fiscal analysis offer to the back burner (if not off the stove). God forbid if Council actually could have such crystal clear documentation that the Charrette Plan could be achieved through a procurement based on both DB and Performance Criteria.
What does all the above tell us? It tells us that Staff has been at odds with Council’s chosen course throughout the process, and that the course corrections that have taken place throughout the process have been Staff “making policy” and pursuing a different course from the one their Council had repeatedly told them to follow. All of that takes time.
With that said, the performance criteria that the Charrette set in October 2009 still can be useful. Bottom-line, they define the problem. What is needed is to let the marketplace show us innovative and price effective ways to solve the problem.
Thanks Matt. So the process is taking longer then expected…
B. Nice said . . .
[i]”Thanks Matt. So the process is taking longer then expected…”[/i]
I guess that depends on your perspective. If Staff had left the policy making to Council, and had not fought so long and hard for a D-B-B procurement based on a proscriptive design, then the process probably would have been over a while ago, and the submitted Design-Build bids would have reflected the current state of the art with respect to innovation and cost-effectiveness.
and David… realize I might have put some unwarranted tone in my previous “post(s)”… I believe that it is the CITY’s responsibility to have the info available on the City website, NOT yours, but I thought that perhaps you had the interest and the contacts to facilitate that. Have a good evening.
Matt: If you see this, can you answer my first post of this morning? I don’t think anyone did and it is still an outstanding question to me at least….
People aren’t engaged in the budget process because it is abstract until they get the bill. Dealing with it is why we elect people so we don’t need to deal with the minutia and figure it out.
SODA said . . .
[i]”As far as the waste water issue, why hasn’t someone asked the local experts what their 2013 recommendation(s) would be??
Matt: If you see this, can you answer my first post of this morning? I don’t think anyone did and it is still an outstanding question to me at least….”[/i]
SODA, to answer your question in the context of the Davis WWTP here are some of the key passages from the 4/19/2011 Staff Report (I have noted certain passages with underline for emphasis and further discussion).
[i][b]Preferred Project[/b]
In 2009, the City commissioned a panel of wastewater experts representing a vast breadth of wastewater knowledge and experience to conduct a planning charrette. [u]The charrette team developed a conceptual plan for the most appropriate project of upgrading the City’s WWTP to achieve compliance with adopted treated wastewater effluent discharge requirements.[/u] They considered a full array of options, from utilizing the entire existing treatment train to replacing the entire system with a standardized package plant. The plan acknowledged and accounted for the significant effect of transitioning to a new water source at the same time the new treatment plant will become operational. Their recommended plan is a combination of innovative ideas and straightforward solutions which will meet the City’s goal of a reliable, lower cost project to meet current NPDES permit requirements, as well as integrating innovative features to facilitate meeting future regulatory changes.
Staff recommends that the city use the charrette team’s recommendations to 1) [u]Provide the basis for the professional services required for design or performance documents[/u], and 2) Continually guide the project team throughout the development of contract documents.
[u]The alternative to staff’s recommendation is to relax the project scope to allow other technologies and treatment processes. The advantages of opening the project scope are that alternative technologies and processes might provide additional benefits to the city[/u].[/i]
Your question gets to the heart of why the Design-Build procurement process was created as an alternative to Design-Bid-Build. My sense is that the Charrette conceptual design and the performance criteria inherent in that conceptual design are still current today, and as such the 2013 recommendations of a wastewater charrette would be conceptually similar to the 2009 recommendations. However, there are many paths to meeting the performance criteria of such a conceptual plan. Inherent in your question is assumption that our “local experts” are omniscient, and that they have an unbiased working knowledge of all the latest design innovations that the myriad of private engineering and construction companies specializing in wastewater have recently achieved. The reality is that they can’t. [b]The Design-Build process makes it possible for the engineering and construction companies to step forward as part of their D-B proposal and tell the City 1) We will meet or exceed the performance criteria of your conceptual plan, 2) This is how we will do so, and 3) We are confident enough in the quality of [u]both[/u] our design and workmanship that we will stand behind an extended warranty that our [u]solution to your wastewater problem[/u] will perform to the Charrette Plan performance level or we will fix the problem (be it design or workmanship) at no cost to the City.[/b]
Design-Build means risk is transferred from the City to the companies bidding on the project. As a result one such bidding company may have a innovative design process that they choose to use that another bidding company hasn’t been able to innovate. Some of those innovations provide the companies competitive advantage in the marketplace.
So, all the above says that there really isn’t one simple consensus answer to what the 2013 recommendations are for detailed design and construction, but at a conceptual plan and performance criteria level, the 2013 recommendations are pretty much the same as the 2009 recommendations. If we complete the 2011 Council-chosen course of a Design-Build procurement based on the Charrette performance criteria, then the companies that step forward with DB bids will be sharing with us their warranted answers to your question. Then all the City has to do is select the bid that provides the [u]best value for money[/u], and in the process save Davis ratepayers millions of dollars.
Mr.Toad said . . .
[i]”People aren’t engaged in the budget process because it is abstract [b]until they get the bill[/b]. Dealing with it is why we elect people so we don’t need to deal with the minutia and figure it out.”[/i]
I completely agree Toad!!! That is why I am making such a big deal of the $47-55 million difference in the wastewater bill between Staff’s currently preferred D-B-B process and the Council chosen DB process. There are just over 16,000 wastewater accounts in Davis. That means the added bill for each account averages between $3,000 and $3,500.