Published: May 29, 2008 09:30 am      

RLCD moves forward with water plant project

By TESA CULLI

tesa.culli@register-news.com

BENTON — The Rend Lake Conservancy District board, with a split vote, decided to enter into a contract with CDM for limited construction engineering services on the water plant expansion project.

Board member Jim Rippy, who admitted he didn’t understand the term construction engineer, said he was opposed to the move, wanting District Engineer Dean Barber and General Manager Keith Thomason to do the work and only call CDM on an as needed basis without signing a contract.

“I can’t get it clear in my mind why we should spend money when we already have two engineers,” Rippy said.

Barber explained the project would require more than 6,000 man hours in construction engineering alone — more than any one person could perform. Thomason also added that he and Barber are engineers — but they were not qualified to do engineering on all aspects of the project under law.

Barber explained there has been $1 million budgeted for construction engineering services, and he was able to bring the cost down to $649,000 after deciding what he could do in-house and what he would need from outside the district.

“The main issue is man hours,” Barber said. “...My recommendation is to enter into a contract with them, that’s step one. The agreement is that I only call them in when I need the extra people, or there is a question I can’t answer or am not qualified to perform. The contract is for a maximum of $649,000.”

“Even if we put Dean on the water treatment plant project for engineering and gave him no other duties, he can’t do it by himself,” Thomason said.

Board member Don Lucas said even at $649,000, “it’s still $300,000 below the budget to contract the services.”

“Engineering is begging us, he needs help,” board member Jim Dolwick said. “He doesn’t have 6,000 man hours to do the job.”

Rippy and board member Jere Shaw voted against contracting with CDM on the construction engineer services, and after losing the vote, Rippy said the project is “typical of how things happen with the state and municipal projects and not with private business.

“It’s going to end up costing more,” Rippy warned. Shaw said even though the contract was for a maximum of $649,000, “be assured we’ll end up paying them $650,000.”

Barber reminded the board that on the electrical upgrade project, the district will only pay 67 percent of the amount budgeted on the engineering and that he has made sure in the past to keep the costs of projects as low as possible.

“I think we wasted $600,000 down there today,” Shaw said. “We’ve already paid CDM $2 million to design the plant for us. We have two certified engineers on board and two others who are dealing with engineering projects. It seems like they want to keep going and going. People think we have deep pockets down there and we don’t.”

Rippy said Tuesday’s board meeting was “disappointing” from at least two standpoints.

“We could have saved a lot of money rather than getting a consulting company to do these things, which I think we should be doing ourselves,” Rippy said. “I think it just shows that Jefferson County doesn’t have equal representation on that board, even though Mt. Vernon is the biggest customer of the district. ... You can see that from the slate of officers chosen.”

Rippy referred to the annual election of officers which was held, with Norman Carlisle being voted in as the president of the board, moving up from his past position as vice president; Buddy Walton being voted in as vice president, moving from his past position as secretary; and Dolwick being chosen as secretary.

Shaw nominated Dolwick for president of the board, stating that he was under the impression that the president’s position should alternate between Franklin and Jefferson County representatives.

“My impression is that it is to alternate between members of the board,” out-going president Keith Ward said. In the final vote between Carlisle and Dolwick, Carlisle received votes from Ward, Lucas, Walton and himself, with Dolwick abstaining and Shaw and Rippy voting for Dolwick. No other board nominations were challenged and were approved unanimously.

Lucas said the nominations had nothing to do with county lines.

“Last year, we elected to offer recommendations and rotate officers,” Lucas said. “I nominated someone from Jefferson County, and they declined. I don’t think counties have anything to do with it. If it did, we’d only ever have Franklin County presidents.”

RLCD Attorney Larry Sanders was nominated and chosen to continue serving as board treasurer.