RE: Sandy Lake Sidewalk QuantityKeith,
I understand your frustration and again apologize for the error.
Additionally, I regret the position that this will put you in with
council and the scrutiny that is inevitable when presenting a change
order of this magnitude. When the time comes if you will allow me, I’d
like to briefly present to council that this was not staff’s error,
rather ours. I’d also like to share/reiterate the following details:
• We calculated the sidewalk quantity in terms of
SY, and typed SF on the bid form, effectively but inaccurately reducing
the quantity bid by the SY/SF conversion factor of 9.
• While we see it as significant, this change order
does not appear to represent additional expense to the City for the
quantity of sidewalk shown in the plans. We’ve compared the contractor’s
sidewalk bid with their sidewalk bid on Phase 2A and found the unit
price to be the same, so we are confident that they did not
strategically inflate their unit price in anticipation of an impending
change order to increase quantity, and profit.
• We understand the change order made necessary, and
sincerely regret the administrative inconvenience it has caused staff
and council, particularly with your constraints of public bidding laws
intended to assure competition. Please accept our apology and know that
while errors happen, this kind of inaccuracy is unusual for us.
If staff prefers to present this to the council, we’d like to at least
be present in the chamber to field any questions.
Please let me know if you’d like to discuss.
Chris
Chris Schmitt, P.E.
Principal
17304 Preston Road, Suite 1340
Dallas, Texas 75252
214.461.9867 Main
903.421.1897 Mobile
214.461.9864 Fax
cschmitt@tnpinc.com <mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com>
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Marvin [mailto:KMarvin@coppelltx.gov]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 11:59 AM
To: Chris Schmitt; Andrew Luce
Cc: Rick Odell; Mike Jones; Kenneth Griffin
Subject: RE: Sandy Lake Sidewalk Quantity
Chris,
This represents a $195,000 mistake. We're going to have to go to City
Council for this change order and explain the discrepancy.
Fortunately Tiseo's prices are fair and appropriate, and if the
quantity had been correct in the bid tabulation we would have paid this
amount anyway. I just hate to give the City Council a reason to
question our competency.
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Schmitt [mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com
<mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com> ]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 11:25 AM
To: Keith Marvin; Andrew Luce
Cc: Rick Odell
Subject: RE: Sandy Lake Sidewalk Quantity
Keith
Yes ....we have discovered the problem.
Dallas office was coordinating the final assembly of specs/quantities
and took information that Andrew provided which was in SF and converted
to SY but we did not modify the unit column on the spreadsheet. The
resulting bid quantity is approximately 1/9 of what is should have been
which reflects the conversion from SF to SY. For some reason we did not
do this on Phase 2A but did on 2B.
The correct SF quantities for the sidewalk should have been:
For 5' sidewalk, Area=22,137.24 SF
For 8' Concrete Path, Area=29,879.52 SF
I realize that this represents a significant impact to these items and
hope that TISEO is able to work with us to soften the blow. I did a
quick review of the bid tab and noticed that TISEO bid the same unit
price for these items on both 2A and 2B. It appears that only one
contractor noticed the issue and attempted to inflate their unit price
for 2B. Not that it was intentional but sure is interesting.
Again I apologize for the error. We're happy to discuss at your
convenience.
Chris
Chris Schmitt, P.E.
Principal
17304 Preston Road, Suite 1340
Dallas, Texas 75252
214.461.9867 Main
903.421.1897 Mobile
214.461.9864 Fax
cschmitt@tnpinc.com <mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com>
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Marvin [mailto:KMarvin@coppelltx.gov
<mailto:KMarvin@coppelltx.gov> ]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 11:03 AM
To: Chris Schmitt; Andrew Luce
Cc: Rick Odell
Subject: RE: Sandy Lake Sidewalk Quantity
Chris/Andrew
Any update on the quantity issues?
Keith
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Schmitt [mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com
<mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com> ]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2014 12:45 PM
To: Rick Odell; Keith Marvin
Cc: Andrew Luce
Subject: RE: Sandy Lake Sidewalk Quantity
Keith/Rick
We are looking at this now and think that we've discovered the issue. I
need to investigate a bit further and will report back ASAP.
Thanks
Chris
Chris Schmitt, P.E.
Principal
17304 Preston Road, Suite 1340
Dallas, Texas 75252
214.461.9867 Main
903.421.1897 Mobile
214.461.9864 Fax
cschmitt@tnpinc.com <mailto:cschmitt@tnpinc.com>
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Odell [mailto:ROdell@coppelltx.gov
<mailto:ROdell@coppelltx.gov> ]
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2014 10:27 AM
To: Keith Marvin
Cc: Chris Schmitt; Andrew Luce
Subject: Re: Sandy Lake Sidewalk Quantity
We will gave the same issue with the 8' trail also .
Sent from my iPhone
On Jun 5, 2014, at 11:50 AM, "Keith Marvin" <KMarvin@coppelltx.gov
<mailto:KMarvin@coppelltx.gov> > wrote:
> Chris,
>
> Can you verify the quantities for sidewalk on the Sandy Lake Road
project?
>
> Thank you.
>
> Keith Marvin
> City of Coppell