Albany City Council held a special call meeting last Thursday afternoon, December 21, to continue review and discussion on a city “water study” they had previously decided was badly needed.
In late November during a special called session, the council opted to proceed with the process of having an engineering firm conduct such a study in hopes of pinpointing some major problems with the system and, more importantly, to get funding for projects to repair those issues–such as a huge amount of water loss the system has been experiencing for quite some time.
The council’s regular meeting that had been scheduled for the first Tuesday of this month was cancelled when it was learned there would not be enough members for a quorum.
A special meeting, with a limited agenda, including the water study issue, was held in the absence of Albany Mayor Steve Lawson, who was unable to attend. The meeting was chaired by Councilman Randy Speck. All other council members were present.
Apparently over the past month, proposals from three engineering firms had been submitted to possibly do a study, with a committee having evaluated and scored each proposal from a list of five questions and ranked on a scoring system from one to five.
The major issue at last week’s meeting among council members and city legal advisor Norb Sohm centered on one engineering firm receiving the third lowest points in total score, but, according to results from the committee score sheets, receiving the highest rank from the most committee members, that being the city’s current firm, Monarch Engineers of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.
Two other firms, Commonwealth Engineering, which had previously had a representative discuss a water study proposal in November, and Bell Engineers, also submitted proposals that were scored based on the five questions surveyed.
At last week’s call meeting, Councilman Reed Sloan started out by asking about the water study evaluation, which was scored by nine individuals, including some water department employees, council members, and the mayor.
Sloan told those present at the meeting he had questions for the mayor about the evaluation process. He said there was a problem in the way the score sheets were made up.
Sloan then said that in overall scoring, Monarch was at third, and said if you took one question out, that number would go down.
Councilman James Bray said there should have been one score sheet rather than multiple sheets, and also asked about funding for the study, saying the Clinton County Community Foundation had already made an offer of assistance.
City Attorney Sohm said, however, the funding was not the crux of the discussion at this juncture and no money has been secured.
Bray continued, however, that the city needs to reach out to non-profits, saying the city needed to know something because time is of the essence.
It was estimated a study of the water system would cost around $15,000.
Bray also made the statement, “Monarch did not win…just on the score sheet only.”
Sloan added, “Monarch got the least amount of scores.”
Attorney Sohm told the council, “This is the way it has always been done. The statute says the mayor makes the decision to hire.”
Sloan then asked, “What is (the) point of us sitting up here?”
Monarch Engineer David Bowles concurred with Sohm, saying, “This process has been done throughout the years. After evaluations are done, the sheets are kept on file for all the firms.”
The five evaluation/award criteria score sheet questions were as follows for each engineering firm:
1. Outline the experience of the firm and the individuals to be assigned to the project.
2. Past record of performance on contracts with the city.
3. Capacity of the firm to work within time limitations, taking into consideration the current and planned workload of the firm.
4. Proximity and accessibility of the firm to the City.
5. Describe the items to be evaluated in the study, such as water consumption, water loss, etc., and the basis for the cost of the study.
Four of the committee members doing the evaluations scored Monarch their highest; two scored Commonwealth Engineers; two scored Bell Engineers, and one evaluation noted “no preference,” or a tie between Commonwealth and Bell Engineers.
Committee member evaluations varied greatly in some instances. For example, Commonwealth  received only five to 10 points total from some, while Monarch received as little as zero from a couple of the members, but a full 25 from others.
Apparently Monarch received the highest overall ranking because the majority, four of nine committee members, had scored them the highest. Commonwealth and Bell received, according to the tally sheets, two and one-half per member.
During the meeting, Bray also asked, “Why are we even debating this when there is such a small amount of cost (for a study)?” He continued, “Why are we swaying to Monarch’s way?”
Sloan then added, “I’d like to see documentation on how this is right.”
Bray further continued, “We appoint a committee to evaluate and make a recommendation. How can you score a firm and not count the firm?”
Councilman Junior Gregory asked if the qualifications for the firms had been submitted, which they had apparently done.
Attorney Sohm said the next step in the process would be for the mayor to negotiate with the highest ranking firm, which in this case was apparently noted to be Monarch Engineers.
Bray then said he felt “We need a fresh set of eyes to look at our (water) problems.”
Sohm countered that “Some would say the most experienced is better.”
Sloan then said if we have the same one, problems would not exist like we have.
Bray then inferred the city has master meters that are 60 years old and water loss is a stumbling block.
Bowles, however, said Monarch had encouraged the city to change out master water meters in past years.
Discussion on the water study evaluation process ended when Sloan asked City Attorney Sohm, “What you are telling us is Tim (referring to Councilman Norris) and the others have nothing else to do and say?”
Sohm noted under the statute, the mayor has primary authority, especially in hiring and firing, and the council acts primarily in an advisory capacity in certain areas.
The issues are apparently still not totally resolved, and the council has not officially voted to have a water study done or pinned down any specific source of where funding for a study would come from.
The matter may be discussed again at next week’s regular meeting of the council. Also, a table listing the scoring for each engineering firm that had a proposal can be found elsewhere in this article.
There was one other item of business on the special meeting agenda, but was brief in nature.
Councilman Gregory, who has been working to help the Albany Fire Department financially by collecting fees on auto accident fire runs via insurance collections, said he would present a Fire Recovery Services proposal to the council at its next meeting for consideration.
The approximate half-hour special call meeting was then adjourned with no official votes being taken.
The city council will hold its regular meeting the first of 2024, next Tuesday, January 2, at 5 p.m. in the conference room at City Hall. The meeting is open to the public.