TRUSTEE BOARD MEETING

Minutes

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The meeting was called to order at 5:00 pm by Blaine Robertson, chairman. Board members present were Gordon Timothy, Pam Beard, Blaine Robertson, Jeniel Facer, Henry Benavidez, and Judy Dewey, secretary. Also present at the meeting were Chad Richards from Headwaters Construction, Pam Beck from DL Beck Incorporated, and Monika Shook from Shook Construction, and Jared Peterson and Kevin DeKold from CRS Associates, architects for the project.

The minutes of the last meeting were approved upon Pam’s motion and Jeniel’s second of the motion. All voted in favor.

Discussion with Contractors

The first order of business was a discussion with two of the contractors who had not been pre-qualified to bid on the library expansion and remodeling project. This discussion took the better part of an hour.

Monika Shook made the following points: 1) that public works projects are not usually done with an RFQ; 2) the board did not pre-qualify local contractors who are part of the tax base; 3) she has had two dozen phone calls from unhappy contractors and subcontractors from the Rexburg area; 4) she emailed the architects about her disappointment; 5) if a contractor has a public works license and the bonding capacity, that contractor should be qualified; 6) questioned whether there was some lobbying and undue influence; 7) wondered how some of the contractors knew of the project, specifically those from out of state; 8) said the out-of-state contractors will bring their own sub-contractors and materials, thus impacting local suppliers; 9) said the big companies would not be as attentive to the project as a smaller contractor because they have no personal interest in the project like local contractors would, that they would “beat up on” the local contractors; 10) said that in 20 years, she has never bid against some of the pre-qualified contractors; 11) local suppliers are going out of business for lack of work; 12) her subcontractors are “part of the family”; 13) the board had limited the pre-qualified contractors to “outsiders” and eliminated qualified people; 14) people are wanting to sue the board but they don’t have the money to do it. Finally, she requested the board review all 16 submitted qualifications. During the discussion she also mentioned a project Shook Construction has done for the District Seven Health Department and that the owners were extremely pleased with their work. Monika brought to the meeting the public works contractor licensee chart which was very helpful.

Responses from the board and the architects were made to several of Monika’s points. Judy responded that public works projects are done with RFQs, that other libraries in Idaho have done so, and that the process is provided for in the Idaho Code. The board assured all present that there was no undue influence exerted nor was there any lobbying in conjunction with the board’s pre-qualifying process. Blaine stated that the required qualifications were published on the Intermountain Contractors website. Judy responded they were also published in three newspapers: the Rexburg Standard Journal, The Post Register, and the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello. Blaine said that two of the pre-qualified contractors are local (Victor and Idaho Falls) and a third is from Boise. He also stated that only contractors who had submitted written requests to have their submission reconsidered could be reviewed.

Pam Beck made several points: 1) DL Beck has worked for the LDS Church; 2) the church’s standards are very, very high, so they are certainly qualified; 3) DL Beck only needs one more large project to qualify for the top public works licensing category.

Following the above discussion, the architects reviewed with the board the qualifications of the three contractors who had sent written requests for another review of their originally submitted responses: Ovard Construction, DL Beck, and Shook Construction. The architects and Blaine had called all the references of the approved contractors. Upon comparison, Jared and Blaine found they all had received positive responses. Also called were the references for the three contractors requesting review. They also received positive responses.

As to Ovard Construction, in the review by the architects it was discovered a mistake had been made, that Ovard had indeed submitted the required three references. The confusion arose because two of the references were from the same project, but they were two separate references.

As to Shook Construction, during the above discussion, Monika referred several times to the $4 million project completed for District Seven Health Department. After investigation, it was discovered she had submitted the wrong address for the project, that the actual project was of the size and scope required to qualify Shook Construction for the library project, and therefore Shook Construction did possess the qualifications.

As to DL Beck, after extensive review by the architects and the board, nothing was discovered to change the board’s original decision.

In light of all the above discussion and review, Gordon made the motion to pre-qualify Ovard Construction and Shook Construction; Pam seconded the motion and all voted in favor. Judy was assigned to send the appropriate letters to the three contractors.

Bid Process

Jared described the bid process: pre-qualified contractors will have two to three weeks to prepare their bids and submit them; the bids will be opened and read in a public meeting, at which time the apparent low bidder will be announced; the architects will then review in detail all the bids and bring all the information back to the board for discussion, going over all the figures. The architects said the plans would be available for the contractors as early as the week of July 27^th. That being the case, the bid opening could be at the regular August board meeting.

Approval of Bills

After review the bills were approved upon Gordon’s motion and Henry’s second of that motion. All voted and favor. The checks paying the bills were signed.

Policy Manual

The hour being late, it was decided to defer review of the policies until the August meeting.

Executive Session

Pursuant to Idaho Code 67-2345(1)(b) Gordon moved to adjourn into executive session to consider a personnel issue. Jeniel seconded the motion. Roll call vote was as follows: Jeniel - yes; Henry - yes; Blaine - yes; Gordon - yes; Pam - yes.

Upon reconvening the regular meeting, Gordon moved to adjourn the meeting, which was adjourned at 7:25 pm.