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 The motion was first made by Jeff Hoinacki and seconded by Todd
Mourning. After much discussion, the two amended their motion for
the vote. When the vote was taken, Michelle Bauer, Hoinacki, Kathy
Horn, Mourning, and Steve Parrott voted “yes.” Rick Hoefle, Jonie
Tibbs and Tracy Welch voted “no.”
The PAVER program was initially proposed by Farnsworth Group in
early January. It was placed on the agenda for a vote at the January
17th meeting, but was tabled at the request of Hoefle.
Hoefle at that time said that the city was being asked to move too
quickly without having time to research other options. He asked for
a two-week delay in casting a vote.
This week as aldermen prepared to vote, there was a lengthy
discussion with a clear difference of opinion in whether or not the
PAVER program and hiring Farnsworth was the appropriate action.
 The discussion began with Hoefle telling the council he had
contacted several cities of similar size to Lincoln, and none of
them used the PAVER program. He said he had talked with officials in
Mount Vernon, Canton, Morton and Washington. He noted that the
circumstances for Washington were a bit different than the other
communities because they are still in recover and reconstruction
mode for the tornado event that hit that town about two years ago.
What Hoefle found with these towns is that none of them use PAVER.
Instead, they utilize programs provided through the Illinois
Department of Transportation, and they also have city engineers.
The proposal from Farnsworth included an initial investment of
approximately $44,000, plus an additional fee for updating the data
in two to three years amounting to approximately $25,000. Hoefle
said he could not support investing that kind of money in software
and Farnsworth.
Tracy Welch talked about an email that had been sent to the aldermen
by Todd Mourning. In Mourning’s email, Welch said information had
been gathered from Logan County Engineer Bret Aukamp. Aukamp had
told Mourning that the task of evaluating the street conditions in
Lincoln could be performed by a city engineer. A city engineer could
also utilize the PAVER program to perform those tasks.
However, Mourning spoke on Monday evening, saying that the issue he
had mentioned in the email that Welch did not mention was the time
constraints. He said to go through the process of hiring a city
engineer could take six to 12 months. The city would lose a year in
implementing any kind of plan. Welch would later comment, just for
clarification, that in the actual email, Mourning had said the city
would lose three to six months.
City Administrator Clay Johnson noted that the PAVER program was
simply a tool that would assist the city in making its road
maintenance decisions, just as the Five Year Plan put together by
Prairie Engineers had done. He told the council that he and Lincoln
Street Department Superintendent Walt Landers had paid a visit to
Peoria, where the PAVER program is utilized. He noted that Peoria is
a much larger city than Lincoln, but they had spoken with the Peoria
city engineer, who said that they hired someone to do the data
collection because they don’t have the manpower to do the work
themselves.
Johnson also noted that the PAVER program is not something that will
be used daily by the city. Training personnel to do the work would
be alright, but because it isn’t used on a regular basis, there
would be a certain amount of time spent familiarizing staff with the
process each time the data did have to be collected.
 Hoefle asked if the Five Year Plan that has just expired was
completed. The five-year plan was initially put together by Prairie
Engineers. The plan included a listing of streets that were to
receive some type of maintenance on an annual basis. The plan
allowed for small projects such as oil and chip, all the way up to
major undertakings such as complete road reconstruction projects.
Lander addressed the question saying, no, the five-year plan had not
been completed. One of the main reasons the plan was not completed
was because the city did not have the funds to undertake the big
projects.
Hoefle asked what percentage of the plan was completed. Landers said
he couldn’t answer that question at the moment, but he could try to
give an answer later. He said what he did know was that in the city
there are 170 lane-miles of road. Last year the city completed
maintenance on 10 miles, and that was one of the biggest years it
has had in a while.
Hoinacki said that he felt the PAVER program was the right way to
go. He said the program is an “industry standard” and that it would
be advisable for the city to start making data-driven decisions.
Parrott asked if the program can help the city “quantify its return
on investment.” He wanted to know if there was a portion of the
program that identified how much money the city was saving by doing
street maintenance according to a street scoring process.
Johnson said that in the long run, yes, because it will help the
city determine a maintenance policy that will keep city streets at a
certain score. He said that the scoring process would ultimately
help the city to realize how large a project they will be
undertaking.
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In the scoring process, each road is to be evaluated and its condition will be
given a score. There will be a range of scores where the city wants to keep a
street. If a particular street is scored on the low end of the range, the city
may choose to do maintenance before the street gets worse. By doing so, yes, it
will save money in that the size of the project will be smaller than if the
street score falls below the acceptable range.
Bauer commented that utilizing a data-driven formula is the way the city should
be going. She noted that having hard data before them will assist the city when
looking at budgeting. She said that the previous plan did not provide the city
with a formula for determining what work should be done. With PAVER the aldermen
will be able to see the formula and will be able to prioritize the street
projects.
Bauer noted that the city’s past experience with hiring a city engineer had not
been the best. But, she said if that is the direction the city wants to go in
the future, the city engineer would be able to use the PAVER program as well.
Tibbs said that IDOT offers similar programs and training for city employees,
free of charge. She asked Landers if he had looked into that. She said she knew
there was a book in the superintendent’s office that would help him. Landers
said, yes, there was a book, and it was a catalog of all the “day training” IDOT
can provide to cities. He said the city of Lincoln had utilized the training,
such as a Flagger Training, and in the near future staff will also be taking the
ADA compliance training offered through IDOT. He said he wasn’t aware of what
was available for street evaluations.
Welch said that he wasn’t disputing that the PAVER program would be useful, but
he wondered why the city had to hire Farnsworth to do the work. Couldn’t the
city do this itself using the current staff? He said he felt the city needed to
be more self-sufficient, and do less outsourcing of work.
Mourning asked Landers if he felt the city street staff could do the assessment
and scoring for PAVER. Landers said that to do the first gathering of data to
establish the program, no, he didn’t feel the city staff was prepared to take
that on. He said he did feel that once the first assessment is completed, city
staff could learn from Farnsworth how to maintain the data.
Parrott asked if Landers was not confident the staff was capable of doing the
initial assessment or was it a matter of being able to dedicate the time needed
for the project. Landers said he felt the issue was that if the staff needs to
set aside time to do all the data collection, then there is some other part of
their job that will have to go to the wayside.
Parrott asked for clarification then, did Landers feel that the staff is capable
of learning the program and doing the work. Landers said, yes, his staff was
capable of doing the work. Again the issue was the time investment.
Johnson said that there was an alternate proposal the city could consider that
would include hiring Farnsworth to do the initial assessment and set up the data
in the PAVER program, and also training city staff to do additional data
collection and updates. Johnson said he didn’t feel the staff could do the work
immediately.
He added there was another concern. If the city pays to train an employee, and
that employee would leave, then the training money would be dollars lost for the
city.
The motion made by Hoinacki at the beginning of the discussion was to enter into
an agreement for Farnsworth to do all the work at the cost of $43,918. Hoinacki
amended his motion and Mourning offered another second to adjusting the contract
between the city and Farnsworth to include training staff in the use of the
PAVER program. With the change of motion, the cost incurred would raise to
$45,000.
With no additional discussion offered after the amendment, the aldermen cast
their votes with five saying “yes” and three saying “no.” The motion passed, and
the city will be utilizing Farnsworth and the PAVER program to outline future
street maintenance projects.
When Hoefle originally asked for the motion to be tabled in January, he inquired
of Farnsworth if the delay would prevent them from getting the assessments done
this year. Joe Adams of Farnsworth responded that he would have to push hard,
but that he would get it done in time to utilize this year.
[Nila Smith] |
