Mayor
Dee Grimm
Councilmen
Francisco Arevalo
Susann Baker
Dwayne Padalecki
David Rakowitz
Doug Thomas
City Secretary
Barbara Pawelek
Minutes of the Regular Council Meeting
May 5, 2016
1. CALL MEETING TO ORDER
Mayor Dee Grimm called the city council meeting to order at 7:32 pm.
2. ROLL CALL AND ESTABLISH A QUORUM
Roll call was taken. Members present were Councilman Dwayne Padalecki, Councilwoman Susann Baker, Councilman David Rakowitz, and Councilman Frank Arevalo. Councilman Doug Thomas was absent. A quorum was established. Barbara Pawelek presided as City Secretary.
3. READING AND APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The minutes to be approved were from the council meeting held on April 7, 2016.
Councilman Dwayne Padalecki moved to approve the minutes as written. Councilwoman Susann Baker seconded the motion. All were in favor; the minutes were approved.
4. APPROVAL OF FINANCIAL SUMMARIES
The Financial Summary was for April 2016.
Councilman Dwayne Padalecki moved to approve the February 2016 Financial Summary.
Councilman David Rakowitz seconded the motion. All were in favor; the financial summary was approved.
5. REPORT FROM FIRE DEPARTMENT
Chief Larry Padalecki called and they are responding to an accident on Highway 87 and was unable to attend the meeting.
6. REPORT FROM CODE COMPLIANCE
Code Compliance Manager, Kim Fornof gave council a report for Code Compliance. There were a total of 6 building permits issued this month, 4 ag permits, and 2 mobile homes. There were also 2 requests for variances but paperwork was not completed.
With all the bad weather, there are a lot of signs going up in the right of ways, which is not allowed in our sign ordinance.
Mayor Grimm added that the American Legion will be putting up a new sign and they will be getting with Kim regarding this.
7. CITIZENS TO BE HEARD
There were no citizens to be heard.
8. OLD BUSINESS
A. ROADS
Councilman David Rakowitz gave the road report.
Ron Mills and his crew completed spraying the roads.
Councilman Rakowitz instructed Charles Seiler to begin shredding along the roadways. He plans to start
next week, weather permitting.
Chris Respondek replaced some of the reflectors along the side of the road on North Lupon, East Lupon, and Graytown Roads. He also replaced some arrow signs. Most of his work
last month was focused on the city park.
Councilman Rakowitz will be driving the roads in the next few weeks with Councilman Thomas to assess any work that needs to be done. He has observed some potholes on different roads.
Next week, Rojo’s Professional Tree service will be trimming some trees along Kusmierz
Road that have been scratching the school buses.
After some of the recent rains, Councilman Rakowitz took pictures of the drainage problem at the intersection of Old St. Hedwig Road and FM 1346 that was reported to him last month. He forwarded those to Russell Beck at TxDOT.
Mayor Dee Grimm asked that when he leaves this month that he will let Councilman Thomas know that we would like a written Road Report like this. She thanked him for giving us such nice reports and for helping Councilman Thomas transition with the Roads since he will be doing it from now on.
B. ROAD PROJECT
Our City Engineer, Jason Staudt, updated City Council on the Bid Tabulation from the Road Project. He said they accepted bids from 2 different contractors about 2 weeks ago. Last week he sent us the Bid Tabulation. He said as you can see they varied pretty significant. Austin Materials bid was for 2.1 million and Fuquay came in at 1.5 million.
After receiving these bids, our city engineer found out from contractors that due to recent price changes in material costs, it is now cheaper to hot mix certain areas of the road as opposed to the cold lay, that we were proposing, about $20 a yard. Jason said by hot mixing, which is a very good finished surface, we would not need to go over and seal coat, especially 2 course like we called for in some of those cold lay areas. He felt we could get that 1.5 million to about 1.2 or somewhere in that range if that is what the City is kind of looking at. He said for 12 miles of road, we probably won’t get it any cheaper than 1.2 million.
Our City Engineer said talking with the City Attorney today, we have 2 options for tonight. We can accept the low bidder tonight and negotiate with them later before signing a contract to get some of these costs down, or we can reject the bids if they are nowhere in our price range if we want to take out some of what we want to do to some of these roads or just lessen the amount of roads. The attorney said if we reject the bids tonight then we have to rebid. The City Engineer felt we should accept the low bidder and move forward with the negotiations if it is in our budget. Mayor Grimm went over our financials. By doing this, we would use half our money.
Councilman Arevalo felt there may be a problem accepting the lowest bidder and then negotiating, he felt we should instead amend the document to the new information that the engineer has. He said amend the document and send it back to the bidders. Jason said you have to send it to all bidders, all those who received the bid documents, even if they did not submit a bid. Councilman Arevalo said if you award, you are awarding the document. According to our engineer, and what he was told from our attorney, if you award, you still have not signed a contract. The worst that could happen is you try negotiating and if things don’t work out with you and the contractor, then he walks away mad, but there is no signed contract.
Our engineer said they know Fuquay very well. He said they are out of New Braunfels and work with tons of municipalities and TXDot. They do really good work.
Councilman Padalecki said we have some really bad spots in these 12 miles of road, and some areas need the cold lay. He questioned why Bexar County is still using this method if it is cheaper to use the hot mix. Jason said he was told that Bexar County can stock pile all that cold mix in their yards and they buy it low, therefore it is cheaper for them.
After more discussion, Mayor Grimm said we can take no action tonight until we get negotiations with the contractor, and come back and do a special called meeting.
Councilman Padalecki asked if we could get a list of projects and references for council to look at before next meeting. Our engineer will forward council a list. Councilman Padalecki said our roads are in such bad shape, we didn’t keep up with these roads, some of us warned others, he felt $100,000 per mile is what we are going to have to pay.
It was decided to have a special called meeting next Thursday. Councilman Arevalo moved to have a special called meeting to give our engineering firm time to have discussions with the contractor and come back to us so we can award a bid. Councilman David Rakowitz seconded the motion. All were in favor; the motion was approved.
C. CITY PARK
Councilman Padalecki handed council a schematic of the city park. He said he would like to put trees in the newest section of the walking path. There would be a total of 32 trees. He gave a list of the trees from Fanick’s Nursery. It will be a evergreen, non evergreen tree like we have, and we will need to tie it in with the irrigation system. We will look at what we have left in the budget to see how many we can do, and he said he would appreciate any suggestions from council.
D. CRIME STATS
Councilwoman Susann Baker gave the crime stat report. The period covered was from March 30th thru April 27th . There were a total of 4 crimes in the City. A copy of the report is on the website at sainthedwigcity.org
9. NEW BUSINESS
A. RENEW ORDINANCE – MAYOR PRO TEMPORE- Discuss and Take Action
The Mayor explained that we need to renew the ordinance for the Mayor ProTem, which appoints them for time period of May 5, 2016 to May 5, 2018. Councilman Padalecki has held this position and has done an excellent job, so the recommendation is that he be appointed as Mayor ProTem for this period. She said the ordinance is in front of you, if council would like to take a look at it.
Councilman Frank Arevalo moved to sign the Ordinance 1602 naming Councilman Dwayne Padalecki as Mayor ProTem for the period of May 5, 2016 thru May 5, 2018. Councilwoman Susann Baker seconded the motion. All were in favor; the motion was approved.
10. ANNOUNCEMENTS
· The Mayor announced that our website is in the middle of a transition and will be redesigned. Let us know if there is anything that you would like to see or changed on the website.
· Election Day, Saturday, May 7th from 7:00 am till 7:00 pm- City and Bexar County held here at City Hall
· Happy Mother’s Day!
· The American Legion Picnic will be Sunday, May 15th.
· Happy Memorial Day!
11. AGENDA FOR NEXT REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING June 2, 2016 at 7:30 PM
1. Roll call & Establish a Quorum
2. Reading and Approval of Minutes
3. Approval of Financial Summary
4. Report from VFD
5. Citizens to be Heard
6. Old Business
a. Roads
b. Road Project – Report from Engineer
c. City Park
d. Crime Stats
7. New Business
8. Announcements
9. Determine Agenda for next meeting
10. Adjournment
12. ADJOURNMENT
The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 pm.
4