Contractor proposes last-minute change

Minutes before the Argonne Road reconstruction project was scheduled to begin Monday night, Red Diamond Construction President Mike Schimmels requested a change at the regular Millwood City Council meeting.

Schimmels asked the council to approve a different traffic flow configuration he believed would reduce the length of the project.

His proposal routed traffic to the outer two lanes while grinding and reconstructing the middle two lanes. Once complete, traffic would be rerouted to the middle two lanes while reconstruction occurred on the outer two lanes.

This would supersede the engineer’s original construction plan of initially routing traffic to the east side of Argonne to work on the west two lanes, and switching sides when the west lanes were completed.

Project Manager Matt Gillis of Welch Comer Engineers refuted Schimmels’ proposal.

“With federal money there are a lot of restrictions,” Gillis said. “I think we need to be careful about just making changes.” Gillis explained proposed changes would be required to go through the proper channels.

He added that any change would affect previous traffic coordination made with Inland Empire Paper Co. for rerouting their trucks at Liberty Avenue.

Schimmels’ request was also met with resistance from city attorney Brian Werst.

“No offense to you sir, but there has been an abundance of planning, public input, more planning … because traffic has been one of the highest concerns in the city,” Werst said. “I think it’s highly inappropriate to be faced with a question of this nature on the first night, first day of the biggest project in the city this year.”

After Werst’s comments, Councilman Kevin Freeman turned to Gillis asking for his recommendation.

“My recommendation … because of what’s been conveyed to the public and the business community is to stick with what was bid, awarded and approved,” Gillis said.

The council voted unanimously to deny Schimmels’ request and stay with the original traffic configuration.

Earlier in the meeting, the council discussed a quick approval process for construction change orders during the project.

“What you risk is having to wait a month between council meetings to get decisions made,” Gillis said explaining the need for a quick approval process.

Freeman proposed authorizing Mayor Dan Mork to approve change orders up to 10 percent of the cost per line item and 10 percent of total cost of the bid, equivalent to $80,000.

Councilman Glenn Bailey expressed concern over the change order process.

“I’m a little uncomfortable … authorizing them to spend $80,000 over the original bid at the beginning of the project,” Bailey said referring to Freeman’s suggestion.

Based on Bailey’s concerns and Freeman’s recommendation, the council unanimously approved granting Mork authorization to approve change orders up to 10 percent of the cost per line item on the bid and up to 5 percent of the total cost of the entire bid, equivalent to $40,000. Any amount over the approved percentage would go to the council for approval.