FBCC tosses out all bids on waterfront master plan

Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
July 6, 2017 3:40 p.m.

On a unanimous vote but not without a half hour of discussion, the Fernandina Beach City Commission (FBCC) decided to reject all bids received under RFQ 17-01 for a waterfront consultant to design a downtown master plan. This means that what had appeared to be the previously selected consultant, the firm of Dix.Hite+Partners, will not be doing additional work at this time beyond its completed efforts to refine the scope of the original RFQ to address commissioners’ concerns over costs.

Commissioners will discuss whether and when to issue a new RFQ that more accurately reflects their desired scope of a waterfront master plan at their July 18, 2017 Regular Meeting.   Commission action followed consideration of several options offered following discussions between City Manager Dale Martin and City Attorney Tammi Bach.

Background

While commissioners were initially in agreement over the scope of services to be included in a contract with a waterfront consultant, differences arose when the selected consultant put a price tag of more than $286K to formulate a multi-year master plan that would incorporate all the elements the FBCC desired. The so-called “sticker shock” for the project began a process of whittling away at the original intent in order to reach a more palatable cost. As various commissioners weighed in on what they considered to be required elements, it became apparent that significant differences existed among them on the role of the consultant in developing such a plan as well as the most important elements that needed to be included.

A smaller contract was approved to find consensus among the commissioners on scope of the larger master plan effort. The agreed upon scope was to form the basis for outreach to the community on input to the plan. However, following the delivery of that report and discussion at the FBCC meeting on June 20, 2017, (https://fernandinaobserver.com/2017/06/21/back-to-the-drawing-board-on-a-waterfront-master-plan/) it became apparent that there was no consensus on scope and that the intervening efforts to refine scope had created confusion among city residents who did not understand how or where they fit into the process.

Commissioners articulate positions

Mayor Robin Lentz began discussion by asking her fellow commissioners, “By rejecting these bids does that mean we do not want to hire a consultant to review existing plans and look them over in the future to create a master plan?”

Vice Mayor Len Kreger weighed in first, suggesting that the FBCC look at a realistic plan for the waterfront, the original goal. He said that upon reflection, he believed that leaving the marina out of the original scope (because it was being handled by another consultant) was a mistake. He mentioned other projects that were either already underway or would soon be, such as the in-house parking study, the opening of the Alachua crossing and stormwater mitigation along Front Street. He said that infrastructure issues needed to be addressed including the recent development of sinkholes in Parking Lot B. “I think the marina is a big issue and a major concern,” Kreger said. “It IS the waterfront. I think we can come up with a common scope through a workshop.” He went on to cite other problems with the marina, which as an enterprise fund is losing money and will probably not be making money “for some time.” Kreger said that he supported the City Manager’s decision to issue the original RFQ, because it had been run by the commissioners who supported it at the time, although Kreger himself had expressed concerns that the original scope was too broad.

Commissioner Tim Poynter reminded commissioners that they had initially agreed on the RFQ’s stated scope and only reconsidered when the price tag was revealed. “If it had come in at $50,000, we would have moved forward as the scope was defined. I want people to understand that the scope was defined; it was just more money than we were looking to spend,” Poynter said. By voting to reject all bids on the RFQ Poynter said, “It’s not that I don’t want a future consultant. We just need to dial it back a bit, look at the marina more, [and issue a new RFQ or RFP].”

Commissioner Roy Smith agreed with Kreger and Poynter. “I think we’ve got a lot of irons in the fire right now,” he said. “Let’s get something going on some of those projects so we look like something’s moving. Then we can narrow the scope and go out for a [waterfront] consultant. People are getting tired of everything being in the air and nothing going into the ground.”

Commissioner John Miller sought clarification from Smith. “Which projects are you saying we’ve approved that we need to move forward on?” he asked.

Smith said, “We haven’t approved them, but there are a lot of different things in the air: Alachua Street, the airport. We’ve got a lot of different projects: parking studies, a lot of different things. Let’s get something going on something.”

Miller replied, “That’s where we’re at now. How would we move forward on ‘something’ if we don’t move forward and ‘do something.’”

Smith again suggested that the city needed to implement the parking study recommendations, open Alachua Street and then look towards bringing in a consultant.

Miller agreed that consensus seemed to disappear when the price tag was presented. He said, “We knew what we wanted. But when you hire experts at that level, it’s going to be expensive. I hear the concerns about needing to narrow the scope, but I hope we can come to consensus so we can hire a consultant.”

Parking study

Kreger suggested that the parking study, being spearheaded in-house by Police Chief Hurley, was due to be presented August 1. He believed that study would resolve many concerns about parking, traffic flow and downtown congestion. He expressed concerns that once the city begins digging under Alachua to construct the rail crossing and under Front Street for stormwater issues that other infrastructure issues will surface. “I think we will have some engineering issues. We don’t need to worry about seawalls and stuff like that, but we need to refine the scope for a waterfront plan.” Kreger added that the results of the citizens’ survey should also be considered in moving forward. Results from that survey will be available in late summer, he said.

Miller said, “I think we can all agree that when we have an election on the horizon, a lot of candidates run against things, rather than for things. Originally we wanted to have all this done by August so it would not be caught up in election campaigning.” Kreger added that the goal was also to put the matter on a referendum for the fall.

Connecting the dots

Poynter spoke next. “As we all know, we have done lots of studies over time. But the one thing we haven’t done is connecting the dots. For me, that was the reason I wanted to have a consultant that had some gravitas, that knew how to work with communities to pull all these dots together. We had a parking study in 2009, but we didn’t do anything with it. We’ve talked about making a pedestrian waterfront—but we don’t want to lose any parking on the waterfront. You can’t do one without looking at the other. Our problem in this community is that we want to continue looking at all these issues as one-off projects without connecting the dots. … Whatever we do on the waterfront is definitely going to impact parking and traffic flow downtown.”

Bond referendum

Poynter went on to explain problems with going out to the voters on a bond referendum. “You’ve got 75 words to account for every penny that you want to spend, and the money can only be spent for what you specify. How do you go out on a referendum with all those things when we can’t even agree on hiring a consultant to help us write it all up to present to the community? We are going to have to spend some money, to invest in ourselves, for the community to understand what we want to do. This cannot be done [solely] by the five of us.”

Mayor Lentz said she agreed with “bits and pieces” of what every commissioner said, adding, “But what Commissioner Poynter just said is exactly where I have been coming from.” She presented an analogy of building a house, explaining that while you think you know what you want, you need a good architect to bring it all together. “If you piecemeal it,” she said, “It could affect other areas of the house.” She said she had even wondered if city staff could help with some of the work to cut down on costs, but she realized that city staff is already fully committed to their normal duties. “I think we need a third party,” she said, “to bring in citizen views, to help us tie in our views, help city staff see how a master plan could be implemented.” She expressed support for moving forward with a consultant on the narrowed scope.

Moving too fast?

Smith said, “Since we are talking about the election here, I would say let’s put this topic off until January, and then let’s really get serious about it. Tim and Robin’s seats are both up for election, and Robin is not running. That means we’ll have at least one new commissioner. Let the new commissioners be involved with it. It’s a big project. We can’t keep pushing it. We’ve got too many other things out there. You can’t rush into these things.”

Smith’s comment produced a quick reaction from other commissioners. Lentz emphasized that the commission was not saying that they would “fix” the waterfront before elections. She just wanted to move forward with a consultant to begin the research and groundwork needed to draw up a plan for presentation to the community. She expressed her support for getting such an item on a referendum in the future. “That’s the only way it will ever get done,” she said. Otherwise she feared that as in the past, new commissioners might abandon the project.

Smith continued to argue with her. “I don’t know that it’s good that you are sitting here as an outgoing commissioner to make such a decision.”

Kreger tried to get the discussion back on track. He cited the difficulties in continuing to deal with Dix.Hite in light of what had been an intervening contract with them for $11,500 to narrow the scope of a master plan. He cautioned that if the FBCC decided to move forward with a consultant, the marina had to be included.

Miller said, “I do want to move forward. I think it’s an embarrassment that our waterfront looks the way it does. This community deserves better than that, and I’ve been saying that for the last 3 years.” Miller referenced Smith’s call to slow down the process and reflected on the FBCC’s last visioning session held in December 2016. At that time he said Smith said the city needed to slow down, that the waterfront process was moving too fast.

Smith appeared aggravated with Miller’s comments. Mayor Lentz cut him off and recognized Poynter.

Poynter said, “I think we should reject all the bids and go out for new bids, and we should have the marina as part of the project. But I want to reject the notion that we are ‘rushing’ to get this waterfront done for 20 years. There are elections all the time. These projects aren’t going to get done in an election cycle; these are long-term projects. But with everyone wanting to worry about the politics of things, nothing seems to get done. And here we are again. I got on this commission 2 ½ years ago, and one of our goals was to start doing the waterfront again. Now 2 ½ years later we haven’t even been able to select a consultant yet. … To say that we’re pushing this, we’re rushing this … It’s even hard to come to grips with that.”

Smith once again took issue. “Because that’s your viewpoint, Tim. People don’t want us to throw together something down there. You think it’s high, the price of a consultant? Wait until you see the price tag for the whole thing. We’ve got a problem down there right now with having to pay for repairs to the marina. Now we’re going to talk about spending money on a consultant? I can’t see doing it until we get that marina fixed.”

Public input

Mayor Lentz recognized a member of the public, Dr. Ronald J. “Chip” Ross, who agreed with Poynter on the need to connect the dots. He suggested pulling the talents and expertise within the community together and tasking the Planning Advisory Board with creating a master plan by bringing together the various studies that have been done over the years. He suggested money would be better spent on hiring a full time planner to assist the PAB with formulating and implementing the plan. He also suggested holding a workshop with the railroad over safety issues, and purchasing a fuel dump for the marina.

Commission votes 5-0

Mayor Lentz asked for the commission’s pleasure. Poynter moved and Kreger seconded rejecting all bids under RFQ 2017-01. Before calling the vote, Mayor Lentz asked for further discussion on what commissioners wanted to follow the vote. Poynter said that because of previous actions he believed that the FBCC had to first approve the motion on the table; Miller concurred. Poynter said that since the city had already paid for the Dix.Hite work to narrow the scope of a waterfront plan, the commission should use that study to continue discussion on moving forward.

Following the unanimous vote to reject all bids, Lentz asked if commissioners wanted to use the narrowed scope defined by Dix.Hite to rebid the development of a long-range master plan. Kreger suggested that each commissioner privately revisit the Dix.Hite document before returning to discuss the matter.

City Manager Dale Martin agreed to get materials to the commissioners for mark up prior to their discussion of the matter at their July 18 Regular Meeting.

Editor’s Note: Suanne Z. Thamm is a native of Chautauqua County, NY, who moved to Fernandina Beach from Alexandria,VA, in 1994. As a long time city resident and city watcher, she provides interesting insight into the many issues that impact our city. We are grateful for Suanne’s many contributions to the Fernandina Observer.