WA0101-CS040831BIRKHOFF, HENDRICKS & CONWAY, L.L.P.
CONSULTING ENGINEERS
7502 Greenville Ave., #220
JOHN W. BIRKHOFF, P E
RONALD V CONWAY, PE.
GARY C HENDRICKS, PE
JOE R CARTER, P.E
PAUl. A. CARLINE, P.E
MATT HICKEY, PE.
DOUGLAS K. SHOWERS, PE
Dallas, Texas 75231
Fax (214) 361-0204 Phone (214) 361-7900
August 31, 2004
Mr. Kenneth M. Griffin, P.E.
Director of Engineering / Public Works
City of Coppell
P.O. Box 9478
Coppell, Texas 75019
Re: S.H. 121 Water Line Project, WA 01-01
Resolution of Invoicing
Dear Mr. Griffin:
We are in receipt of your letter dated April 14, 2004 outlining questions about the invoicing on the
referenced project. Gary Hendricks and I have prepared a response, below, and a revised invoice reflecting
work up to the end of December 2003 (currently shown on paid invoice #1119). Once this is resolved we
are interested in completing the project and issuing construction documents for bidding purposes.
1. Design Services: The most current paid invoice (# 1119, dated January 21, 2004) reflects the project
as 95% complete. Although significant additional design work was completed and invoiced as re-design,
we now realize that this re-design was attributable to incomplete DIGTESS field locations and therefore
misleading utility information. We take responsibility for this and will reallocate these charges, totaling
$5,759.94, from re-design to basic services.
2. Design Surveys: The design survey services were originally subcontracted and we erred in
invoicing our cost rather than the agreed upon fee for these services. This was corrected in a revised invoice
sent October 28, 2002. Then in March of 2004 we invoiced additional dollars for surveying associated with
utility locations that were not documented in the original survey. We will bear the cost for this survey work
under basic services. The revised invoice (attached) reflects the removal of any additional survey charges
and identifies this task as 100% complete.
3. Field Notes and Plats: To date we have prepared four separate plats and field note descriptions for the
project. The reason for the significant expense in this item is discrepancies in the deeds for the FRWM
properties on the north side of S.H. 121. There are severe inconsistencies and irregularities in the owner
transfers and corresponding field note descriptions for the FRWM properties. We expended a significant
amount of additional unanticipated effort to resolve the boundary descriptions. We plan to include the full
budget amount authorized in the contract in a future invoice.
4. Reproduction: Printing services that were invoiced previously under Reproduction should have
been included in basic services. These dollars ($290.21) have been reallocated to Design Basic Services.
Mr. Kenneth Griffin, P.E.
City of Coppell
Page 2 of 2
5. Redesign: As stated earlier in the Design Services subsection of this letter, we now
understand that re-design was predicated on the fact DIGTESS did not properly locate the existing utilities
along the proposed alignment. We believe that a "constructible" project has been designed based on the
more complete utility locations. We realize that these redesign activities were not the responsibility of the
City of Coppell and that the effort should have been allocated to basic services. The current invoice reflects
a deduction for all costs associated with redesign.
The attached revised invoice for work up to the end of December 2003 reflects a total credit to the project of
$ 6,050.15. We will track this amount as a pre-payment as we complete the construction documents and
proceed to the bidding and construction phases.
We recognize that you and your staff have been inconvenienced as you reviewed our previous invoices. We
trust that this suggested resolution of the costs for Professional Services will be acceptable and will put us
on track to complete the design and proceed to Bidding and Construction in a timely manner.
Since there will likely be questions regarding the attached invoice, I will contact you later this week to set
up a time to visit with you and go over in detail the resolution of any outstanding items.
ncerely,
Enclosure