Contract for Clintonville’s 2021 road projects
By Bert Lehman
The Clintonville City Council voted to hire Kunkel Engineering Group for the city’s 2021 street reconstruction projects.
At its November 19 meeting, the council authorized City Administrator Sharon Eveland to negotiate and sign a contract with Kunkel Engineering Group for engineering and construction administration services not to exceed $105,000.
The cost of the design services is included in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan and the 2020 budget, and will be shared proportionally between General Fund, the Water Utility, and the Wastewater Utility.
The scheduled 2021 street reconstruction projects include: West 13th Street, West 14th Street, Paulina Street and Shaw Street.
According to a Staff Report written by Eveland, the city received eight qualified proposals. These proposals were reviewed by Eveland, interim Public Works Manager Mike McCord, and Water/Wastewater Manager Dave Tichinel.
After ranking the proposals on five different criteria, and assessing the cost submittals, three firms were eliminated. Two of those eliminated were due to excessive costs.
Costs for construction observation and administrative services were then solicited. One additional proposal was eliminated at this time based on cost.
The four remaining proposals were submitted by MSA, Kunkel Engineering Group, Ruekert Mielke and Robert E. Lee. The total cost rank, excluding construction administration and observation costs was as follows: Robert E. Lee – $82,600, Kunkel – $99,630, Ruekert Mielke – $104,775, and MSA – $110,100.
When construction administration and observation costs are included, Kunkel came in at the lowest, around $2,000 less than Robert E. Lee.
When the bids were discussed at the Nov. 18 Clintonville Finance Committee meeting, Eveland said, “This was actually a lot harder to make a call on than it was with the previous contracts.”
She added that Kunkel Engineering Group does not charge for travel time to meetings.
“That would be an additional cost savings,” Eveland said. “It’s not actually factored into the proposal cost because most firms typically charge that as reimbursable on top of their services.”
Eveland said MSA did a “fantastic job” doing the engineering for the city’s most recent street reconstruction projects, but said that she couldn’t justify MSA’s additional cost.
Finance Committee member Jim Supanich, said he was not familiar with Kunkel Engineering Group, and asked Eveland if references were checked.
Eveland said the city did check references, and Kunkel had excellent references.