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13 City Council (08/11/03)MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL AUGUST 11, 2003 The City Council of the City of Paris met in regular session, Monday, August 11, 2003, 6:00 P.M. at Paris Junior College, Bobby R. Walters Applied Technology Building, Room 1208, 2400 Clarksville Street, Paris, Texas. Mayor Curtis Fendley called the meeting to order with the following Council Members present: Jim Bell, Jay Guest, Joe E. McCarthy, Francine Neeley, Willie Weekly, Jr. , and Benny Plata. Also present were City Manager Michael E. Malone, City Attorney Larry W. Schenk, and City Clerk Mattie Cunningham. Invocation was given by Richard Hart of the Christian Fellowship Church. Mayor Fendley announced that the City Council had been furnished minutes of previous meetings, and asked if there were any corrections or additions. There being none, a motion was made by Councilman Guest, seconded by Councilman McCarthy, for approval of the minutes. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. City Manager Malone advised that the City Council had been furnished with the minutes for the Paris Public Library Advisory Board, Paris Economic Development, Airport Advisory Board and the Historic Preservation Commission with no action being required. The minutes of the Traffic Commission with recommendations of placing stop signs at Simpson Street at 26th Street S. E., stopping East and West bound traffic, and a stop sign at 28th Street N.W. at West Campbell Street, stopping North and South bound traffic, were presented. ORDINANCE NO. 2003-034 AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PARIS, PARIS, TEXAS, PROVIDING THAT THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF PARIS BE AMENDED BY REVISING THE TRAFFIC CONTROL MAP ADOPTED IN PARAGRAPH (b) OF SECTION 31-65 OF Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 2 SAID CODE BY PLACING 4-WAY STOP SIGNS AT SIMPSON STREET AND 26TM S. E.; PROVIDING FORA PENALTYNOT TO EXCEED $200.00; MAKING OTHER FINDINGS AND PROVISIONS RELATED TO THE SUBJECT; REPEALING ALL ORDINANCES OR PARTS OF ORDINANCES IN CONFLICT HEREWITH; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2003, WAS PRESENTED. City Manager Malone advised that the Traffic Commission voted unanimously to deny this request and recommended that this not be placed. He said there was a citizen that requested the stop sign. The report was that it did not meet the warrants for a 4-way stop sign and there have not been any accidents at this location. Mike Atkins came forward speaking on behalf of the request for the stop signs. Mr. Akin presented pictures of the intersection along with a petition signed by four people on 26th Street S.E. Mr. Atkins advised that he did go before the Traffic Commission and, basically, they did not feel comfortable recommending the stop signs because of the mandates. He said the speeding vehicles and the amount of traffic on these streets warrant the stop signs. Nita Bankston, 2520 Culbertson, appeared stating that her mother lives directly east of Mike Atkins at 2760 Simpson and she is back and forth between that intersection five to ten times a day. The traffic is bad and it only gets worse when school starts. She said living on Culbertson, she goes through the four- way stop sign at Culbertson and 26th S. E. all the time and there is not the traffic there because everyone chooses to use Simpson because there is not a stop sign and it is a straight shot. David Griffin, 545 26th S. E., appeared stating that he does not have children at home but he has lived at that this location for approximately 10 years. He said there are a lot of speeders on that street that come from 24th to Collegiate and his main concern is a child walking home from school. He said there are a large number of kids that take this street and he has said for a number of years Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 3 some little kid is going to get injured or worse because of the speeders coming down that street. He said a stop sign would be inconvenient for him, but it needs to be there. Karl Louis, Police Chief, said he would prefer that if a change is made for the sake of safety then make this a 4-way stop as Simpson is a through street. A motion was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilman Guest, for adoption of the Ordinance. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. ORDINANCE NO. 2003-035 AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PARIS, PARIS, TEXAS, PROVIDING THAT THE CODE OF ORDINANCES OF THE CITY OF PARIS BE AMENDED BY REVISING THE TRAFFIC CONTROL MAP ADOPTED IN PARAGRAPH (b) OF SECTION 31-65 OF SAID CODE BY PLACING STOP SIGNS AT 28TM STREET N.W. AT W. CAMPBELL STREET STOPPING NORTH - AND SOUTH-BOUND TRAFFIC; PROVIDING FOR A PENALTY NOT TO EXCEED $200.00; MAKING OTHER FINDINGS AND PROVISIONS RELATED TO THE SUBJECT; REPEALING ALL ORDINANCES OR PARTS OF ORDINANCES IN CONFLICT HEREWITH; AND PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2003, WAS PRESENTED. A motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, seconded by Councilman Weekly, for adoption of the ordinance. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Mayor Fendley declared the public hearing open to receive input from the citizens of Paris regarding local participation in the expenditures of funds under the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant awarded to the City of Paris. No one appeared and the public hearing was declared closed. Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 4 Resolution No. 2003-127, authorizing the application for a Local Law Enforcement Block Grant; authorizing the expenditure of funds; accepting said grant award upon notice thereof; authorizing the execution of any and all documents necessary of acceptance and implementation of said grant upon notice thereof; making other findings and provisions related to the subject; and providing for an effective date of November 11, 2003, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilman Weekly, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-128, approving and authorizing the execution of contract Change Notice No. 04 (Attachment No. 04A) to the contract for Public Health Service, TDH Document No. 7560022067 2003; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, and providing an effective date of August 11, 2003, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Weekly, seconded by Councilwoman Neeley, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-129, approving and authorizing the execution of a contract for public health services, TDH Document No. 7560006359 2003; making other findings and provisions related to the subject; and providing for and effective date, was presented. A motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, seconded by Councilwoman Neeley, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-130, approving and authorizing the execution of an agreement for the temporary closure of State Right-of-Way for the 2003 Festival of Pumpkins, was presented. A motion was made by Councilwoman Neeley, seconded by Councilman Bell, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-131, approving and authorizing the execution of Addendum Number One to the lease agreement dated November 12, 2001, between the City of Paris, and Ansteorra, Inc, d.b.a. Star-Net Online Systems Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 5 to provide wireless service at the City of Paris Water Treatment Plant, was presented. A motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, seconded by Councilwoman Neeley, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried, 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-132, approving and authorizing the execution of the Owner Occupied Rehabilitation Program Design, Contract No. U23038, under the Texas Home Investment Partnership Program Assistance Grant; authorizing the City Manager to execute the aforesaid program design; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, and declaring an effective date, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Weekly, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-133, approving and authorizing the execution of a contract with R. I. M. Enterprises, Inc., for construction services in connection with the City' s Owner Occupied Rehabilitation Program under the Texas Home Investment Partnership Program Grant, was presented. A motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy for approval of the resolution. The motion was seconded by Councilwoman Neeley and carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-134, approving and authorizing an intergovernmental agreement for consulting services with Paris Independent School District for the presentation of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Program for one hundred seventy-eight (178) days throughout the 2003-2004 school year for students in pre-kindergarten through grade 5 at the Givens, Justiss, and Aikin Campuses; making other findings and provisions related to the subject and providing for an effective date, was presented. A motion was made by Councilwoman Neeley, seconded by Councilman Guest, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-135, approving and authorizing an Intergovernmental agreement with North Lamar Independent School District for provision of Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 6 school resource officer services during the 2003-2004 school year; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was presented. A motion was made by Councilwoman Neeley, seconded by Councilman Weekly, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-136, approving the grounds sublease between the Red River Valley Fair Association and the American Legion Post # 199 of Deport, Texas; making other findings and provisions related to the subject; was presented. A motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, seconded by Councilman Bell, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-137, approving the grounds sublease between the Red River Valley Fair Association and the Hopewell Volunteer Fire Department; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilman Plata, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-138, awarding the bid and authorizing the execution of a contract for the 2003 City Street HMAC Overlay Program; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Guest, seconded by Councilman Weekly, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No 203-139, accepting the proposal of ARCHITEXAS for completion of an updated Historic Resource Survey of the City of Paris; authorizing the execution ora Professional Service Agreement under the terms and conditions and in a form approved by the City Attorney; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Bell, seconded by Councilwoman Neeley, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 aye, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-140, appointing Lay Representatives to the Northeast Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 7 Texas Library System for terms expiring August 31, 2003; making other findings and provisions related to the subject, was presented. A motion was made by Councilwoman Neeley, seconded by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Resolution No. 2003-141, resolving that Pike Burkhart, Bailey Gant, Cari Johnson, and Rene Harvey be, and they are hereby, appointed to serve the unexpired terms of Bill Payne, Mary Ann Chalaire, Lisa Span, and Linda Ryan, as members of the Main Street Advisory Board of the City of Paris, was presented. A motion was made by Councilman Guest, seconded by Councilman Bell, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Mayor Fendley announced that the next item on the agenda was appointing an auditor to conduct the Independent Annual Audit as required by Section 35 of the Charter of the City of Paris for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2003. City Manager Malone advised that proposals were mailed out in July and advertisement was made in the Paris News regarding the performance of the city's audit for the year ending September 30, 2003. There was one proposal received from McClanahan and Holmes PLC with an estimated cost of $48,000.00. This is an increase over the $36,000.00 paid the previous year because this year the city falls under the new GASB reporting 34 standard. The year of implementation will require 1010 man hours to complete the audit compared to the usual 800 man hours. He advised the City Council that it was his and the Director of Finance's recommendation to accept the proposal of McClanahan and Holmes. Mr. Anderson advised that they find it harder and harder to get proposals because many CPA's are no longer doing audits because of the liability insurance and the staff requirements. They have to gear up for something this large and most of them do not want to do that. The other alternative for the city is to go outside the county, and he has been reluctant to seek much input from them simply to keep the money local if there is someone who could do the audit. Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 8 After discussion, a motion was made by Councilwoman Neeley, seconded by Councilman Weekly, to accept the proposal of McClanahan and Holmes to perform the Independent Annual Audit for the City of Paris for the year 2003. The motion carried 7 ayes, 0 nays. Mayor Fendley advised that the next item on the agenda was for discussion of issues related to creating a new policy on work-by-the-day. City Attorney Schenk said he and the City Engineer, Shawn Napier, have worked on this matter. Their goal is to try and work through the City Council thoughts with regard to work-by-the-day such as what would be the circumstances and how it would be administered. Then they could develop a comprehensive policy that addresses the issues. He said he would like to go through these questions point by point and allow the Council to give them guidance on each individual point. Using these answers they can develop a worthwhile policy. The City Attorney pointed out one issue raised with regard to work-by-the-day was what cash limit you might want to place on work-by-the-day. He asked Council to keep in mind that, currently under State Law, each individual project, as it would be identified, could be done as a project without bidding and not necessarily by the day, providing that the total cost of the project is under $25,000.00. If you limit work-by-the-day to a project amount of $25,000.00, you basically are not going to have any work-by-the-day because the projects that are $25,000.00 or less can be paid for at the end of the project. He said you can also bill that and he believes the city's practice has been just as an administrative technique to still bill that by the day, but you can do those and separate projects providing that the cost does not go through $25,000.00 and does not require to be bid, but it does not have to be paid for by the day. City Attorney Schenk said work over $25,000.00 needs to be bid or it needs to be paid for by the day or subject to the other exceptions and materials. Mayor Fendley asked if the Council wished to go through each line of the Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 9 questionnaire and asked if Council had any questions. Councilman Bell said he had several comments, primarily based on the information that they had from the previous day work. The presentation by Mr. Schenk does change this some, but he would be happy to start the discussion or do it on a question by question basis. City Attorney Schenk said he would like to do it that way in order to get the consensus of the Council on each issue so they will know what the group consensus is before calling them for a policy. Councilman Plata said he has not had time to look at this and he generally meets with other people who have more experience in this and gets more information and he has not had a chance to do that. He asked that it be extended until the Thursday night meeting. Councilwoman Neeley suggested they the City Council have an open discussion and not make any decisions but get input from all of the members. Mayor Fendley announced a short break at 6:50 P.M. Mayor Fendley reconvened the meeting at 7:00 P.M. and said they would continue with the discussion on work-by-the-day. City Attorney Schenk said he would like to take this in order and try to record any comments that they might have. He would like to get a clear consensus to the extent that they can on each of the issues because that will really help in trying to develop a draft policy for their consideration. City Attorney Schenk said the first issue is very straight forward - should the City of Paris continue to do work-by-the-day? Mr. Schenk said that is the reason for him giving the Council the explanation of what constitutes work-by the-day at the start, and this question needs to be answered before they go any Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 10 further. City Attorney Schenk said Shawn Napier, City Engineer, was present with certain recommendations to give to the Council. Mayor Fendley asked if anyone had any comments on the item of doing work- by-the-day. Councilman Bell said he initially would have said yes to work-by-the-day because he could see a possible need for day work. But under the circumstances as reported by the City Attorney he would now say no. He does not see a need to continue with work-by-the-day because jobs more than $25,000.00 would be put out for bids. City Attorney Schenk explained that he felt that there could be instances, which he and Mr. Napier have talked about, if you look at it as small project by small project it is very difficult to estimate exactly how much a project is going to cost. In that instance, that is why they have treated those projects as day projects because in doing so, even those a project such as a manhole could be done for less than $25,000.00, if it was treated like a day project in terms of how it was paid, especially since Mr. Napier has arrived. Mr. Napier came forward stating that there are a lot of times they will go fix a simple problem thinking that this will take two or three days. Often, when they start digging and uncovering they do not know what they are going to find, especially in a town as old as Paris. Many times, they might encounter a line that has the same type problem and while we are there we may as well go ahead and fix the entire line. He said a lot of our water mains are old cast iron lines and they tuberculate over time, meaning that they basically grow together. Mr. Napier advised that sometimes even on a small project we get into those lines and we do not know how far they are going to go because there are no correct records from the 1920's, 30's, and 40's to show the lines. Councilwoman Neeley posed a hypothetical situation saying that if Council decided not to do work-by-the-day anymore and the city commences a project Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 11 estimated to cost $10,000.00, which is under the $25,000.00 limit, and staff finds the project is more extensive and will exceed the $25,000.00 limit. She asked that, if we get in there and find that, do we stop that project, fill that hole up and go back and bid the project to fix it? Mr. Napier said they may have to do exactly that. Mayor Fendley said that could be true unless you declare that an emergency. Mr. Bell said that a number of those problems, which have been proven, have been taken care of. They dated back in the year 2000 and 2001 and they were taken care of with day work and were converted to being billed and paid on weekly-monthly basis to a daily basis. Mr. Bell said he has not seen anything since Mr. Schenk has brought it to the attention of the city, which day work has not been brought to him that says day work is not being paid on a daily basis. Mr. Bell went on to say, that having been said, it has been clear that the City of Paris, in these instances, paid $47.00 a foot for pipe where a pipe with the same specs could have been purchased for $35.00 a foot. He said that is a problem when we get into hundreds of thousands of dollars spent. He said that there is a problem when we know and have price sheets out here that we have machines and operators that the city was paying $85.00 an hour for when there are other people very capable of performing the job for $$65.00 an hour. He said that things like this tell us there is abuse. Mr. Bell said he was not sure how it was handled by Mr. Napier but in the recent case just brought up in Mack Ross's situation, Mr. Napier's estimate to do the work was $75,000.00 and the actual cost was $45,000.00; therefore, what we have is a situation where the cost is exceeding what they should be, considerable, and there is no reason to be spending on day work. He said that day work can and is, in many communities bid, not as a project cost, but bid with the city providing the material and it is not hard to pick up the phone and get faxed in two cost estimates that meets the specs, and that is not hard, you put them in the file and you have them dated and you will have an estimate for the pipe and the other materials. He said that it does not take much to look up the price list and say that we have three contractors or four contractors that can perform this work and this is what the charge is by the hour. It is also not hard for them to say I Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 12 will do it for "x" number of dollars an hour and not exceed that 45 hours. Councilman Bell said most cities do check the prices and get bids and it was not done in the records brought to them. City Attorney Schenk said the investigation and reviews of all the issues has been referred to the Texas Rangers. He would prefer to keep from addressing these issues until the investigation process is concluded. The Texas Rangers may have turned it down, but the Police Chief and whomever else completes that investigation will make a presentation to the City Council. The City Attorney said that time would be the time to also address the question of what has been found with regard to these perceived over charges. City Attorney Schenk said what he would really like to do is focus on what do we want to do and if everyone has the understanding of work-by-the-day. There are places where it can be used and places they might not want to use it. He really wanted to go forward with coming up with a policy for the future so they can decide what they wanted to do regarding how future work is done. Councilwoman Neeley said there is nothing they could undo at this point and what is needed is to come up with something to make sure it does not happen again. Councilman Bell said he would like to build on the policy adopted by the City Council in 1999 because they had a reason for adopting that policy. City Attorney Schenk said he felt that the issues that were encompassed by that policy had a narrow focus. He thought the Council would find that all of these questions that might have been addressed by that policy or somehow are going to be addressed by the policy in this process whether its no work-by-the-day, or work-by-the-day in specific circumstances, because that policy was tied to a certain number of days in a certain period of time. This brings the question up, if you had an emergency job and have already utilized your time, Councilman Bell said he would suggest that the city can do work-by-the-day, Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 13 and get estimates on it from at least two companies on an hourly basis not to exceed the $25,000.00. City Attorney Schenk said the answer to the first question is ~yes" the city would do work-by-the-day and that was the consensus of the City Council. The second question staff is asking the Council is do you want work-by-the-day only in an emergency situation or do you want the City to do work-by-the-day in non-emergency circumstances? The answer of Council is to do work-by-the- day in both instances. City Attorney Schenk asked what the Council considered an emergency. He asked for input on this since it is subject to interpretation. Councilman Plata said Council said it was specifically a bid process. The City Attorney said what he would like to do is pencil that in, and he asked whether it is only in a situation connected to a bid process and, if so, we are actually bidding that out. Mayor Fendley asked Councilman Bell if he said to bid anything over $25,000.00. Councilman Bell said he was finding out that most projects can be estimated and it is not difficult to get two estimates in the file whether it is $5,000.00, $25,000.00, or $35,000.00. Mr. Bell said to take these projects where the Paris News has actually reported that one was a million-dollar project and it was busted up into little $25,000.00 segments and it does not work. They did the same thing on the Fire Department. Mayor Fendley said we can address it as a job. City Attorney Schenk said if the Council is going to allow work by the day in emergency circumstances, that is clearly not a bid circumstance, and the most extreme case is the big break that the city had at the Water Treatment Plant. Councilman Bell said you would use your contractor that was the low bidder if available. If not, get a statement that he is not available and go to the next low estimator. The city will have estimates and price lists that are available to the city that states the cost per hour, Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 14 The City Engineer explained that in an emergency, like the water line break, we just start calling people on the list and you take the first person who is home. In this instance we were calling at 9:00 at night and we were asking them to work all night. Mr. Bell asked why would a city crew not go first in any emergency situation. Mr. Napier said the city crews are always there first. He said they are there to see if they have the means to fix the problem. The City Manager said some of these emergency situations that occur, particularly at the Water Treatment Plant, require equipment that we do not have and the expertise that they do not have, but they are still there. City Attorney Schenk stated that what they are saying is process wise, the City Engineer, Public Director, or the Director of Utilities would make a judgment as to the kinds of work that they think needs to be done and that is whom they would start calling based on the pre-pricing for that information for that service that we had in advance. He asked is that kind of what you are saying? Mr. Bell said he understood that there are some contractors who do not have the type of equipment that is needed or the expertise, but at any given time the city should be maintaining a list of people that can perform various work. The city should be requesting those people to keep on file their current bonds and insurance, etc., and they can work for the city at any time. City Attorney Schenk said that in the instance of an emergency they work from a list of qualified contractors. They would call to get the first contractor with the best price that qualifies and who could be on the job and address the emergency. City Attorney Schenk asked what the Council considered an emergency. Mayor Fendley stated that the statutes say an emergency is a matter of life, health and safety. City Attorney Schenk said we can do that, but still, there could be an area of dispute and that is what brings to mind to see if you believe you have some sort of emergency, what sort of preapproval and verification are we looking for in that policy to be able to state ~that is certainly an emergency" and we need to go out and spend the money. Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 15 Councilman Bell said when the city had the water break at the plant, within minutes the City Manager was on the telephone calling because everybody was tied up. First he considered that an emergency. The city had a severe loss of water that the people had to pay for. That was clearly an emergency. The City Manager called the City Council and let them know what was going on. Mayor Fendley said the City Attorney is wanting to know who was to make the call. Councilman Bell said he did not see any reasons why the City Engineer could not make the call. Mr. Bell said he needs to inform the City Manager and the City Council if there is danger to life, property, or if it is going to be a major problem of denying services to certain industries in the city and it should not be that hard. Mr. Napier advised that they also should add the Director of Public Works, as well as the Director of Utilities because he is over the Water and Sewer Plants. The City Attorney suggested that staff make recommendation to the City Manager who will notify Council about the emergency. City Attorney Schenk said take for instance, that a water line breaks adjacent to a home and that one home is deprived of water, or you have a sewer line stoppage that is at a private house. Mr. Napier explained that what Mr. Schenk is leading up to is that we have this situation quite a bit where they will have two main water breaks around town and water breaks sort of stack on top of each other. If you get one break in one part of town you lose the pressure a lot of times. The older pipes will collapse on you, which leads to more problems. In that case, the city crews are tied up and we have to have help from someone else. Councilman Guest stated that this was started with a major project and now the city is getting it down to a micro-managing process. This Council does not want to do that. They don't have to do that, just clear the major projects. City Attorney Schenk moved to Section II, Item No. D, if, in instances other than emergencies, what would those instances be? The Council has decided that it could be more than $25,000.00 and certainly in the instance of an Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 16 emergency, but other than an emergency do you want to put an upper cap on work they would consider could be done by the day even if we have some preclearance process to select the appropriate contractors? Councilman Bell said in those cases, they need to be estimated, and he was using the word estimate instead of bid, to get two estimates and bring it to the Council. Mayor Fendley asked council members if they wanted to leave the $25,000.00 cap as a limit or did they want to move it up? Councilman Bell said he would take the dollar figure out of it totally. He did not think there is any reason why they couldn't get estimates on all projects under $25,000.00, and then if they want to set a larger cap for day work then they could. City Attorney Schenk pointed out that setting a cap was, in essence, a not-to --exceed price on work-by-the-day. He said that the city would not have contracts with these people and that is the essence of work-by-the-day. You are trying to oblige them not to go above a certain price total and you are only paying them by the day. The idea is to be able to fire or hire on a daily basis as far as work-by-the-day is concerned. Councilman Bell said you are saying to give someone carte blanc to go out and do the work and if it starts at $12,000.00 and ends up costing $87,000.00 then they can do that because they have been authorized. The City Attorney said he was trying to evaluate what he said and it sounds like what you are wanting to do is really back up again and only do work-by-the-day in an emergency circumstance; otherwise, then contract for work. Councilwoman Neeley wanted to know if the resolution that was passed in 1999 was limited to day work, and was there not one written to cover an emergency situation. City Attorney Schenk said that was one possibility with regard why it was done that way, and we really do not have any guidance on that. City Manager Malone recalled for Council that a recommendation made by an interim City Attorney on the basis of consultation he was having with the County Attorney was incorporated in a resolution passed by Council, and subsequently staff changed directions again before the Council. City Engineer Earl Smith made a presentation before Council about working on a sewer line Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 17 to satisfy the EPA and made Council aware of the methodology used, although, the Council did not formalize that process by a resolution. Councilwoman Neeley asked if Councilman Bell or Councilman Guest has been in touch with other cities or checked something that goes on in other cities. She wanted to know how common work-by-the-day is in other places. Councilman Bell said it was very common, but what is not present here is they are still getting an estimate and placing caps on it not to exceed a certain amount. Councilman Guest asked Chip Jenkins how long he had been doing this type work for the city. Mr. Jenkins said he has done this type work for the City of Paris for about 16 years. Councilman Guest asked how have they always done it and it seems to work in the past, what are we doing differently now that they were not doing then. Mr. Jenkins said not a lot, pretty much the same thing. Councilman Guest asked if the city had called him to get estimates on a job or equipment cost and operator cost? Mr. Jenkins said when he started working for a city he was handed a sheet of with the name on top and they used their rates, which was only one of the contractors being done. He said he knew that sounded bad, but it was not this city. Mr. Jenkins said when he came to work for this city he used those same rates because he does other work for other cities such as Greenville. He said he sees where Councilman Bell is going with the pipe price. He does not have anything to do with that. He said he just does what they ask him to do. Mr. Jenkins said there is a way to do this day work, and regardless whether he did it any more for the City of Paris, day work can be good for the city. Mr. Jenkins addressed the issue of the $65.00 and $85.00 an hour excavator. He thought that all contractors should have to have everything worded the same, for instance all of his equipment is with an operator and some of the others are not. It was his feeling that the city should have a sheet and have everything worded the same and let the contractors fill in the prices. Mr. Jenkins said that if someone charges $115.00 per hour for a track hoe and someone said they Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 18 can do it for $85.00 with an operator, just because you are paying someone $65.00 or $115.00 does not mean you are going to get more activity. He said he had been in this business for 25 years and he can give the Council a list of cities all over Oklahoma and Texas where he has done multi-million dollar jobs. Mr. Jenkins said if you call a contractor and tell him that he has 5 thousand feet of sewer line to lay 20 feet deep, and he wants to give him some idea what it is going to cost, you can if it is 20 feet deep. If we are laying a water line across a pasture, he could get really close, but when you put it in the pavement, then you are going to be off some. Mr. Jenkins said the good thing about working for the City of Paris doing work-by-the-day is they have an inspector with every crew. He said that the inspectors know exactly if you are doing your job or you are not doing your job. He said that he did not know anything about pipe cost o these other jobs, but that he did a good job to the best of his ability. He said that the good thing is, he bids a job putting the cost of the material in there with a percentage added to that, but that the city does not have to do that because they buy their own materials. He said that there are incidentals and that means if you are laying down the middle of the street and if it gets hard or rock or whatever, there are a lot of contract jobs that we do change orders on for those reasons. He indicated that day work eliminated the need for change orders. He indicated that when you are digging in the ground, you walk up and down the street say you are going to lay a sewer line down through here 15 feet deep, but if there are lines in there it is like digging through a gold mine. He said that there are ways to do day work and he agrees there are ways to control that. Mr. Jenkins said there should be a uniform way of doing work-by-the-day. Mr. Jenkins explained that on each excavator if it says 120 that is 12 metric tons, if it says 320 cat that is a 20 metric ton machine. In his case, he has a couple of Galaxy's that are 20 metric ton machines, it is all in weight class. All of the productivity is basically the same, the only difference is there is a good operator and one that is not so good, but should be worded that way. Mr. Jenkins said some of his machines have attachments that go with it and he breaks that down in the price. Councilman Bell said they checked with a couple contractors and their estimate was $65.00 - $75.00 with the operators. It was not plus the operator; it was with an Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 19 operator, and it has nothing to do with you. Councilman Bell said this Council can do this tonight. City Attorney Schenk said that he would like to defer and felt that the city needs to have an opportunity to respond to some of these matters pending the investigation. City Manager Malone advised that there has been day work done by the city for more than 30 years and the legal advice during that time was that, in the fashion it was being done, it was legal at the time. Mr. Malone said he did not think the City Attorney has said the way we have done this is illegal. The City Attorney said again that what he would like to do is defer from that whole discussion because he felt there is a second side to all stories and in all fairness that side of the story needs to be told, but he felt that the city is somewhat shackled in doing that until the investigation is complete and it would be premature to address that now without that process. Mr. Schenk said that this document is something that the City Council could work on and felt that the second page is something that they could pass on. He said he had tried to quantify the size of the non-emergency projects and it appears that the Council wants staff to bring back to them all of the work that could be done by the day. Item 3 addresses how staff would approach the process of grouping and bring back for Council's consideration. He said that, apparently Council would like the City Engineer to bring all pending projects back to you accompanied by a brief description of each project including estimated cost, time of completion, and the suggested contractor. Councilman Plata said no, that is not what he said. Mr. Napier said he agreed more or less along the guidelines as Item 3A except for the last thing, suggesting the contractor, and would bring the quotes back. The City Council felt that was back to micro-managing and if it is day work and they get two estimates the Council does not need for that to come back to them. Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 20 Councilman Bell asked what is wrong with getting two estimates $25,000.00 and below and three estimates for $25,000.00 to $50,000.00, and then anything over $50,000.00 is authorized by the City Council. City Manager Malone explained that the City Engineer does an estimate of the projects when he sits down to sees what he is going to do, but they are paying it by work-by- the-day. Councilman Bell said he wanted an estimate from the contractor. City Attorney Schenk said if you look at the prior policy you have and look at the Attorney General's opinions, the issue is to work by the day and to be work by the day, you cannot obligate them for a long term project. Mr. Schenk said that, if you are asking a contractor to run a thousand feet of pipe and build it for less than a certain amount of money you do not have either of those (contract or work-by-the day), you have a blend. You are trying to hold the contractor to a set figure for the whole project, but you want to pay him by the day, that is not work-by-the-day. Councilman Bell said he and Mr. Jenkins can sit down and work it out because they seem to be on the same page saying the limits that we can do on this and do it that way, but the city does not want to do it, so he responded that he was back to page 1, don't do work-by-the-day. City Attorney Schenk said Item 3A suggests to you a process to do what you are talking about. The Engineer will do an estimate on a particular project and give the Council a description of the project, an estimated cost, a time of completion and recommend a contractor based on price and experience. Mr. Bell said his problem is having Mr. Napier to the estimate instead of the contractors. The City Attorney said that there may be an estimate but it would be coupled with something akin to what Mr. Jenkins was discussing. He said we would have?ia standardized price form that each contractor completes that shows their charge for a particular kind of work. Mr. Schenck said there would no longer be a misunderstanding about whether a piece of equipment comes with an operator or without a operator. Councilwoman Neeley requested that Mr. Napier bring the Council a sample form so they could see if it was what they wanted. She said if they approve the Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 21 form and we have a dollar limit on this right now and if Council wanted to raise it to something else, they could do that. She said that Mr. Napier has a number in his head that he knows what this project should cost, and he has the bid sheets on file of all of the contractors. She wanted to know if they needed to see each one of them after that and it is all filed in his office. Councilman Bell said we have one of the best Engineers that we have had in a long time, but Mack Ross's project is a very good example in that Mr. Napier estimated Mack Ross's project at $75,000.00 and it was done for $45,000.00. Mr. Bell asked, if you handed an estimate to a day work contractor and he saw he could do it for $75,000.00, what do you think that contractor is going to do? City Manager Malone advised that the way the day work has been used, the inspector is on the job and the city is in control of the job. The city can send the contractor home any time during the day. The city can tell him not to come back tomorrow and have another contractor work the job. They are charging a price for the machine and labor depending how much labor is there, which price we know in advance, and the city is controlling the job totally. It is not a bid, it can be stopped anytime. If they find another sewer line that conflicts or find it six feet deeper than they thought it was, or needs to be, then the city is responsible for that, if we are directing that work, and there is no extra cost. There is no cost built in about bonding. He said that, even in a bid project, if you have plans and specifications and if the contractor finds something unforseen, the contractor comes back for a change order and gets additional money. He said we are taking all the risk out of these jobs for the contractors. The city is assuming all the risk. City Manager Malone said that, if we go out there to lay a sewer line and we find it needs to be six feet deeper for some reason, then they just dig it deeper. It takes a little longer, but they are being paid per hour by man and machine, and it does not make any difference to them. He stated that is the benefit to the city of doing the work the way we are doing it. City Manager Malone advised that usually the city has three contractors that have worked a crew on a regular basis and sometimes they work two crews. He said that they are working five days a week and eight hours a day and Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 22 anyone who wants to be on that list needs to come forward and place their information on the list and show up to work. Mr. Malone said that they have all done about an equal amount of work and the city engineer is assigning work based on who gets through and what the city is going to do next. Councilman Bell said that many cities are doing this by estimate basis. They are getting the sheets that the City Attorney is talking about and getting it quoted to do a particular job by day work, getting two estimates from companies on the job. The cities are providing the material, which they are also getting more than one estimate just to protect themselves. They are getting ~not to exceed" quotes and those quotes are padded, but they are out there stating that, and since it is being done by the day, when they run into these situations that Mr. Malone was talking about, the city inspector notes the ~do not exceed" dates are moved back, but it is still estimated by the contractor that he is going to need one backhoe, one trackhoe, and six men and that is what he is going to be doing by the day. Mr. Napier explained that, in his pricing estimate on Mack Ross's subdivision, one of his inspectors made the note that when they were digging in that area, they had encountered some rock, so he padded his estimate to provide for the rock in the area plus a little extra because of the unknown. He said that is the reason for the higher figure of his estimate on Mr. Ross's subdivision. City Attorney Schenk told Councilman Bell that he did not think he can hold the contractor to his estimate, and he did not think he could on a work-by-the day situation. He said this shows him that the concept of work-by-the-day is, in fact, generally misunderstood. He said that, if you are talking about them coming in and giving you an estimate that you intend to hold them to, if it is for less than $25,000.00, you could have them do the job for the reason that he had just explained. Mr. Schenk said that, if Council is trying to contract an entire job for a fixed amount ~not to exceed", that is not work-by-the-day because you are contracting with a person to do a particular job. He said that Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 23 what staff is saying is, if you have a non-binding estimate and they say they can get it done in three days by Mr. Napier's estimate, their estimate is academic because each contractor can tell that he can get it done in the least number of days, so you will give him the work. The City Attorney said that is why he thinks the better estimate from the city's perspective, whether it winds up being that or not, is our own engineer. He was not saying it has to hit it on the nose, but to allow the contractors to give us the estimates almost invites the fact that one contractor will certainly try to under bid the next, but whether you get it done on a day basis for that amount remains to be seen. City Attorney Schenk asked what the City Council thinks of this: if there is an emergency, we want it fixed. If it is not an emergency, then what Mr. Napier can do is identify for the month or two months kinds of projects that he sees that needs to be done. They can bring those to the City Council with the description as to the size and nature of the projects and what they think it will be, a brief description, and the cost. The question is, do you want to do these separately or do you want to try to aggregate them in a single deal; or do you want the city engineer to make a recommendation? Mayor Fendley said he did get those comments and thoughts and they will bring that back at a later date with a recommendation as to how the Council wants to go forward. Mayor Fendley announced that the next item on the agenda deals primarily with Budget Workshop items. He said they have another budget workshop set for August 14, 2003, and the Council might want to go ahead at this time and schedule what departments the Council would like to look at. City Manager Malone said they could take the departments in order as they are in the budget, or any order the Council would prefer. Mayor Fendley said the main thing he noticed when going through the department budgets was talk about a payroll increase of 3.43% but even if the Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 24 staffing remains the same the payroll is running 6% or 7%. Gene Anderson, Director of Finance, came forward and advised that the salaries under the proposed budget has the 3.43% in it. There are going to be in some departments what appears to be a larger variation. Mr. Anderson said last year the city purchased a software module that is called payroll budgeting and it automated the calculation of our budget and they had problems in using it last year. There was a large data base set up and it just did not work exactly right. We either did not get the data in there just right, or it performed in a way that we were not expecting. Some of the numbers that they were working on in the budget last year just did not look right. They did some manual manipulation and they ended up as being estimates. Mr. Anderson said they have gone back through this past year and they work all of that base data so it would take the number that is being proposed, but some of the budget numbers from last year, they do not think are right. Mr. Anderson said there was a combination of two things in the city's pay plan. They have a salary what they think a job is worth and that is step five on the pay plan. When an employee is hired, he is hired at step one and over a period of three years as they gain experience and perform well they go through that pay plan until they get up to what they are worth. Mr. Anderson said he does think that the problem they had with the software is an issue, but they think it has been corrected. Councilman Guest said the old budget figures can't be relied on so then we would have to add another two months on the year to date. Mr. Anderson said that was correct, assuming the number of personnel is the same and, in some cases, those budget numbers are not going to be off much. Councilman Guest asked if the computer problem runs into the hospitalization also. Mr. Anderson said that the problem they have with the hospitalization is they have had a half dozen people that have had catastrophic illness requiring the payment of claims in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. He Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 25 said that the city is a self-funded group and self insured. He said that the city uses TML as a third party administrator to process and audit the claims, but the claims are paid dollar for dollar by the city and we have taken quite a hit. Mr. Anderson explained that the city started insuring on this basis in 1985 when Nick Hammond, who implemented that, was Personnel Director. Mr. Anderson said that, in the 18 years that we have used it, probably 14 or 15 of those years the city has come out ahead, but right now we are in the hole. Councilman Guest asked what was the alternative. Mr. Anderson said they are talking to TML to see what could be saved if the city alters its plan. Mr. Anderson said he has talked to them about getting in the TML Pool with other cities, but at this point, the cities claim experience has been so bad they are not interested in the city joining the pool, which is the same problem we are going to have if we try to go out and obtain a private insurance company. Mr. Anderson said what they think they have to do is get the claim costs under control with regard to some of these catastrophe claims that we have to deal with. He said these people have got to get better or not get better and leave the plan so that we do not have that liability. He said that the city will have to alter the plan and make benefit reductions to save money and look at whether or not they want the employees to contribute a larger share. Mayor Fendley asked how much the employees contribute. Mr. Anderson said it is really not on a percentage basis. He said there are three different rates. The employee and spouse rate is about $135.00 or $140.00 a month for the employee's contribution. The employee and family rate is $220.00 a month for the employee's contribution and the premium for a single employee is picked up by the city. Mr. Anderson said they have an individual stop loss that is $75,000.00 per individual then there is a group stop loss. Councilman Bell asked if the hospitalization term and benefits and these things, are they things that they take up in the budget, or are they set by separate ordinances or resolutions? Mr. Anderson said they can certainly Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 26 look at any of those. Mr. Anderson said for the TMRS, the City Council sets what the employee contribution rate is and what the city' s contribution is and based on that, it is actuarially determined what the contribution amount has to be. Mayor Fendley said they may not have time to look at all of these. He said they have received a copy of the employee manual and he felt the Council needed to have some input with the staff as to what is in the employee manual as for a vacation time and sick time. Mayor Fendley appointed a committee consisting of Councilman Guest as chairman, Councilman Bell, and Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy to work with the city staff. He did not feel they could address all these issues and make any changes, if there were any changes before the budget is adopted, but it is something that they need to have ongoing. Mayor Fendley said for the Thursday night meeting they will take the first six departments in the budget. Mayor Fendley called for input from interested citizens of Paris proposing services or projects to be included in the 2003-2004 City of Paris Budget. Mack Ross, 3475 Reno Drive, came forward stating that he wanted to talk about lost revenue. He said if they read the editorial in lhe Paris News, he was talking about members of this Council getting involved in other projects and getting what instructions prior Councils might have given the city staff. Mr. Ross advised that four years ago, he addressed the Honorable Mayor Neeley and the Council about this issue after two years of annexation out to 4 miles. He said that at the last meeting they had brought out the fact that Mr. Malone and Tommy Haynes had failed to annex Mr. Haynes's property and failed to annex the asphalt batching plant and one of the principals of that business was a partner of the Mayor at that time. He said that Mayor Neeley asked the staff why they left out these two pieces of property and they had a pretty weak excuse. He said that Mayor Neeley instructed the Council to annex it the next year. Mr. Ross stated that nothing was done regarding this Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 27 matter. Mr. Ross said he just found out that the property has recently been sold by Mr. Haynes to a giant apartment complex. He said that it is not in the city, and now the city is going to lose a lot of revenue, fees, and building permits plus the revenue off of both of those pieces of property. Mr. Ross wanted to know why should they give a raise to the employees saying that, the ones that need it, that is fine, but why does Mr. Malone and Mr. Tommy Haynes deserve a raise until someone finds out why they did not annex these properties like the Council instructed them to? He said that it is just not right for anyone else who did not follow up with the Council's recommendation back then. Mr. Ross said he also found out today that the same owner that is doing the apartment complex who bought it from Mr. Haynes is the same one that got the $200,000.00 grant that did Eastgate and that also came through Mr. Haynes's office. He said what this looks like, maybe it just looks that way, but the city gets a $200,000.00 grant to do a subdivision and some of the people in town at that time did not get the chance to bid on that subdivision. He said they were upset. He asked why they did not put it out for bid or proposals for other landowners and other developers. Mr. Ross said that they brought in a man in from Dallas. He said that now, that man has purchased land from Mr. Haynes, and he would appreciate this Council looking into this and finding out why the Manager did not follow up with the Council's recommendation. City Attorney Schenk said he was not here when the annexations were done, but he did know that since he has been here, two years ago there was a Council Annexation Committee appointed to look at potential annexation and at that time they spent a considerable amount of time considering other potential locations for annexation. Mr. Ross said the City Manager should follow the directions of the Mayor and Council when they tell him to do something. Mr. Ross said at the Commissioner' s Court meeting last fall, he heard this man present his proposal to the county. This man was bragging about the city Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 28 telling him to wait and annex the property after he has everything done and he would save all the fees, permits, and inspections. He said that it is not fair what we have done in the past about not treating our people equal. Mayor Neeley said they needed to fix the system because it is broke and they could not annex it that year because they had annexed all they could. There were no action on Agenda Item 8C through 8F. City Attorney Schenk said that he needs a consensus vote tonight on setting the public hearing on the City Manager's Proposed Budget. It was the consensus of the City Council to defer setting the public hearing until the next meeting. It was the consensus of the City Council to have budget workshops on August 18, 2003, and August 19, 2003. City Attorney Schenk presented the following petition for rezoning: Ronald Kyle, Lots 1B and 1C City Block 315, from General Retail District to General Retail District with Specific Use Permit (52) Signs and Billboards. Mayor Fendley referred the petition to the Planning and Zoning Commission for their study and recommendation at their meeting scheduled in September. There being no further business, a motion was made by Mayor Pro Tem McCarthy, seconded by Councilwoman Neeley, for adjournment. The motion carried unanimously. CURTIS FENDLEY, MAYOR ATTEST: Regular City Council Meeting August 11,2003 Page 29 MATTIE CUNNINGHAM, CITY CLERK