Select Board Meeting — June 17, 2026

Get worse.

Yeah.

Good evening and welcome to a special meeting of the Select Board on Wednesday, June 17th.

2026 at 5 PM.

Would you please, uh, rise and join me with a salute to the flag and a moment of silence?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, Mass General Law Chapter 30A, Section 20F requires any person recording must notify the chair at the beginning of the meeting.

All select board meetings are recorded via audio and video and are broadcast live on CCOC Channel 96.

I'll call the meeting to order.

Uh, board and committee openings, would someone like to read?

Yeah, I'll take that.

Okay, volunteers are needed on the Capital Improvement Committee, 2 from select board, 3 from moderator.

The Commission on Disability, 6 from the Select Board.

Economic Development Committee, 3 from the Select Board.

Energy Committee, 3 from the Select Board.

Finance Committee, 1 from the moderator.

Historical Commission, 2 from the Select Board.

Thank you, Mr. Archambault.

The good news is that that list is getting shorter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, okay, general business.

Discussion regarding the awarding of a bid for Encore Pavement sidewalk rehabilitation services to one of the following bidders: Pawtucket Hutton Asphalt Incorporated, J.H.

Linson Sons Incorporated, or Tasco Construction Incorporated.

Yep.

So, uh, Mr.

Chair, at the last meeting, um, the board asked me to just kind of confirm with the, uh, the contractors to see if there was a deadline that they could meet.

So, uh, we did contact all 3.

Uh, the highest bidder has not gotten back to us.

We actually just received word back today from Pawtucket Hot Mix just a couple of minutes ago, so I'll give that to you.

Mr. Cabral did speak to Lynch.

So my understanding is that Lynch is committing to being able to start prior to July and then also finish the projects by August, the end of August.

What you'll see here is that Pawtucket Hot Mix has committed to doing north of 44 in— by starting by June.

Ending it in August, but then staggering the, uh, the work south of 44 for Arcade, which would be, uh, 3 weeks later until mid-July.

I'm sorry, approximately 2 months later in mid-September.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Was that accurate?

I did reach out to Lynch.

Did you mention that they would be able to accommodate the schedule by the end?

Yeah, can you, can you just talk about the specific timelines on Lynch?

So I, um, spoke with Lynch.

I talked to their, um, chief estimator who actually worked on the proposal with the field guy that did measurements.

So they were actually out in town doing measurements out there.

Uh, he did indicate to me that they, um, provided notification is received by tomorrow The contract paperwork would be executed the following week and they would begin breaking ground by the end of June.

That would be their plan.

Begin date would be the end of June.

They said by 6/29/2026.

Definitive end date, the end of August.

And Lynch would commit to the schedule and conditions of the bid documents.

Have you seen the one from Pawtucket?

No, I actually got a copy from them.

No, but I did I did catch the discussion from Mr. Cadime, so I heard what that was.

Thank you.

So where we would like to get all of Arcade Avenue done before school, certainly the real important part is the north section, right?

Mm-hmm.

All right.

Oh, I know, I drew a blank.

I knew I wanted to say something.

I couldn't remember what it was.

So the only— I know.

So one of the things I did want to recommend to the board that we would probably make a change or modification to the contract.

So typically in the contracts, we say that the work will be completed by November, which is essentially the ending end of the paving season.

So in this particular instance, we would scratch that out, make sure whichever bidder it is that we put in the deadline that we, we want just not to extend it to November.

And I don't think there's any issues with there.

I, I would just— committing to the work by that date is fine, but there's usually some incidental work that you wouldn't necessarily want to hold to.

Yeah, we can, we can modify the language.

I'll work with you to make sure that we got it to where we need to be.

And I think to some extent the bid document kind of speaks to itself for trying to make that commitment happen by that date.

And so the highest bidder did not get back to you?

Correct.

Any comments?

I know what my motion would be.

I stand with what I voted on last time.

Okay, Michael.

I agree with Chris.

I'm staying with my vote and my decision from the last time.

Based upon, well, actually based upon all the reading we had the opportunity to have.

Right here?

This is the memo?

Yeah, yeah, that knowledge of paperwork right there.

Okay.

Just looking at the response to the question was asked to them about how they're going to stagger it and stuff like that.

I— where we can get one company come in, start it, get it done by the end of August, that's going to be my vote.

Now I'm going to stand by my original decision.

So, okay, I did go through quite a bit of this, um, and this is a little more than what they did for the first— for the Anthony Street job.

From what I could gather from the emails and all the information was the contract says that the contractor has to come up with a schedule 10 days from signing, the signing of the contract, and they never did that.

So this is better.

If we could, if they could, you know, maybe tighten this up a little and come up with concrete dates, that would be even better.

The other thing that was concerning for me that I think speaks more directly to the problems that came along with that job was the contract called for a superintendent to be on site from Pawtucket, and there wasn't one.

And I think had there been a superintendent on site, maybe some of the issues wouldn't have happened, or at least somebody would have been in charge.

It almost appears that the contract was signed and then it was like nobody really there wasn't anybody overseeing, making sure that all the terms of the contract were being met.

I think the lack of a superintendent was unacceptable, but by allowing the job to start and continue, it's almost like we waived that clause of the contract because we allowed it to happen.

So, um, that, that was something that was concerning to me because Um, I, I can't— for, you know, I can't— I don't have a crystal ball, but I'm wondering how much of what happened on Anthony Street could have been avoided had there been a superintendent from Pawtucket on site.

Yeah, I think that the son— yeah, the owner's son was the project manager, but I think he was only there for a week and then he ended up never showing up again, right?

Yeah.

So yeah, it was a concern, especially with this project with the sidewalks.

Okay, I, I mentioned before, I know the overlay job they've done in the past without a lot of supervision either.

They generally do not have the supervision needed, okay?

In this particular job, they had subs working out there with no one from Protected Hot Mix asking questions that should have been answered and addressed by Protected Hot Mix.

You have their subcontractor doing the curbing work asking questions about what are we using for curbing, how are we laying this out.

That's not on us.

That's— you sold the job, you had the opportunity We had concerns early on.

We actually started even looking at the contract language to see how we could get out of here, but— and then it caused it to be very handled very inefficiently, even to the point that I brought in an engineer.

I never brought an engineer in to oversee a paving job before.

So early on, we started seeing problems.

We saw the schedule starting to slide.

And just so the board is aware, we knew to contact them in February to make sure we got on the schedule early.

We went out of our way, had a meeting early in the season to discuss this project in particular, to make sure we hit the ground running last year.

Because the game plan last year, by the way, too, was not only to do Anthony Street— get Anthony Street done before school let out and shift over to Arcade Avenue North to get that portion done while school was in recess.

So we worked diligently with them at the beginning.

And at the end of the day, they, in my opinion, were spread out too thin.

They had other work going on.

There was never anyone here to oversee this project at a project management level to answer anybody's questions.

But, but we have— by signing the contract, we have a duty to make sure that the con— that the conditions and terms of the contract are being met.

So if we're not— if the town or the board isn't made aware of it at the time then it's like playing Monday morning quarterback.

And that's where I think we did have a responsibility to make sure that the, the terms of the contract were being met.

And by a super maybe showing up for a week and then not appearing anywhere else, something should have been or could have been done about that.

There was some early notification, and I'll tell you, it was June, the end of June, where I was actually on vacation, and because of all the, you know, I read the emails, empty promises that were made, right, leading you to believe that they're going to show up, they're going to show up, a little bit of weather, and then just week after week didn't appear here.

We notified and had discussions early on by June, like, what are we doing with these guys?

And later on down the road, we did pull them in, and they, you know, by that point they started doing work, but then they left 3 weeks at a time with just a sub out there working on sidewalks.

So it— I've been 19 years working here, and I've been overseeing a lot of these roadway projects.

This one here by far was the worst of them having coverage.

And in my opinion, it was more notable that they were just not here because they were just— there was no one around.

Even with the crew, I mean, some of the emails you see in there too, even the crew working there were doing damage to things like gas gates and water gates.

They didn't have the laborers idea.

And they would make comment to the foreman that was out on the job, and myself, my assistant, and the engineer— when we brought him on board because we knew we needed supervision at some point to try to get this project to continue forward.

And we'd started taking measures to make things happen, and that's, that's where we were.

All right, I've got a couple questions.

Any comments are made, I stand by what he said.

What did you say last time, Chris?

What do you— what are you standing by what you said?

Oh, I'm going with Lynch.

I lived this nightmare, um, between all the residents complaining, myself seeing work that was inadequate, um, them putting down curbing, ripping it back up, um, no work going on, work going on.

It was just a mess.

And the residents— I mean, the emails that we— we had people come to our meeting complaining to us and like, listen, we're not the one that's delaying this project.

Okay, yeah, because I drive through that several times every day and I witnessed it, and I'll talk about that in a moment.

And like you said, you stand by what you said.

And then I said— go ahead, Chris, finish.

I know it's a big difference in price and I acknowledge that, but I said— I, I think Mr. Healy said it too— I'd rather pay a little bit extra to make sure it's done right because JH Lynch is a very reputable contractor.

Um, and I also said I do know Pawtucket Omnibus was very, very, uh, spread out then.

They were like 2 years behind the other cities, and they were, they were so spread out then.

That's why the, uh, owner's son had to leave our job to go somewhere else, and they kind of left us in a hole.

And if I'm not mistaken, I think they— well, it started off with when they were doing Barbary, not even Anthony Street.

They started Barbary, complete destroy that, uh, what do you call whole full-depth reconstruction.

So not just mill, they dug down to the dirt, they put it in the first layer, then they were gone for weeks.

A major rainstorm came and every neighbor was up in arms because their front yards, everything was completely like a flood over there.

They still had catch basins covered up.

I think they were out there shoveling in ankle-deep water.

And if I'm not mistaken, I think just within a couple weeks ago they were still fixing repairs on that.

That street, and that was the first thing they did at the start of the contract.

Barbary and, um, going up off 152.

Barbary, Hawley, and B-Hill.

Yeah, because you guys are doing seams that came across, right?

You guys were fixing seams.

Oh, they were fixing what?

The seams.

The seams where they didn't mend them in, they had to heat them up again to blend it in almost a year later.

But that's just my Having lived through it.

One of the discussions we had, Bob, was that whoever we choose, especially Pawtucket, but I would say JH also, we're going to have our consulting engineer, GPI, oversee the whole project.

Will there be additional cost to the town to do that?

Yes.

No, no, no, $150-something thousand extra.

$156,000, I think.

But is that for both projects?

So I could just interject to say this.

So the supervision required, and GPI has been doing work for the town as the town's engineer, they do inspections for subdivisions and all that, so they're very familiar with the type of work.

They did indicate at the last meeting prior to this meeting overseeing Petucket Hot Mix, they gave a price tag of $150,000 is what they would require to oversee that project.

For Arcade Avenue north and south.

Some of that— there's some survey work because we know that there's certain sections— we did look at that roadway and we have to do a little bit of survey out there, probably $25,000 worth of making sure things get put back so we don't end up with puddles in the gutter line.

If it is Lynch, the amount of supervision required on that is probably going to be reduced significantly.

You're still going to spend $25,000, but it may be $50,000 to $75,000 total instead of $150,000.

And that's their experience with Pawtucket last year.

It was the first time they had to deal with all these problems.

Based on that, they gave me a realistic price for working with them, and they gave me a realistic price in their mind of just indicating that it's going to be reduced significantly to some degree.

It could be half with Lynch out there because Lynch is just a little bit more reputable in terms of the type of work they do.

They work for DOT, Rhode Island DOT, MassDOT.

They just have a little bit less need for handholding.

So Bob, to answer your question, similar to Chris, it was just one thing after another.

I mean, I look at Anthony Street and they put down curbing.

They started to lay out the sidewalks.

I think that's when the first time our engineer got involved.

They're taking us to of the sidewalk wasn't correct.

We had to tear it out.

Curbing had to be torn up.

I— to my— in my opinion, some of the curbing is still out there, probably should be replaced.

Um, they, they paved the road.

They did a fairly good job.

I think they had to make some corrections right near the bridge overpass at one point because some of those seams weren't correct.

What happened on Holly and Barbera and stuff like that, that was completely unacceptable to have neighborhoods flooding.

Um, they did not level the road correctly from day one.

Um, they put that binder coat down and then it rained and And, um, it took forever.

I think once they get the road paved to go back in and loom and seat it— I think, I think loom and seating took place in December.

They did.

I don't know where it took place.

July, at the beginning anyway.

It was— it all dried up because— and then on top, on top of that, you know, they had signed a contract.

They're responsible to have a supervisor there, someone overseeing the project and stuff like that.

Instead, we, we had to hire our engineer.

We had to have our superintendent, his assistant, one of his foremen there babysitting this company on a daily basis just to make sure something got done.

When they would show up, they would, they would say they were coming, but then it'd be a week, a week and a half.

They show up to a little bit of work and then they leave again, and we get another promise.

And they had— there was plenty of, there was plenty of meetings, plenty of communications between Mr. Cabral, the town administrator, and the company.

And it was like, when are you guys going to actually get this project done for us?

We need to get this road done.

And finally we got to the point where we could get it paved and we accepted what's out there.

I am not willing to take that chance, and I'm willing to take anybody's comments, and I'll take the punches to the head for spending the extra money to have a reputable company come in and do a major thoroughfare in our town.

Anthony Street is— it's, it's one of the major roads on the South End, but Arcade Ave, it's the only way other than going back roads, you can get from the south end of town to the north end of town unless you come through East Providence.

And I want it done right.

And just so you know, Bob, there was— so they did Anthony Street.

Obviously, as you know, they were supposed to do Anthony Street and Arcade all before school started, right?

Obviously, that's— this is where we're at, but they were supposed to do all that within that month and a half time frame.

All right.

Yeah, I mean, to me, because I drive through it all the time, I know you live by that, Chris.

Yeah, so we're constantly seeing it.

It was dysfunctional from day one, in my opinion.

Completely inadequate work area protection, non-existent.

The details weren't there.

Residents had to find their own way around.

Lack of PPE by the workers— no hard hats, t-shirts, no retroreflective gear.

Guys run around, different guys there all the time.

There were a lot of red flags.

But as I read through this, and I understand all the problems, and I agree that it was a shit show out there and poor workmanship and everything else, what really bothers me— and I think Liz touched on a little bit in that contract, the 07000, page 6.

Everybody's got this contract.

Under the superintendent clause, 3.81, the contractor shall employ a competent full-time superintendent, necessary assistance, and shall be in attendance at the project site at all times during the progress of the work.

The superintendent shall represent the contractor.

All communications given to the superintendent shall be binding as if given to the contractor.

Important communications shall be confirmed in writing.

Other communications shall be confirmed or written requests in each case.

And importantly, the contractor shall remove the superintendent if requested by the owner, and a new one will be put in.

I mean, I look at it besides this contractor, I think we are all a little responsibility.

This calls— our contract calls for a superintendent.

The day he's not there, it's like, where the— where is the superintendent?

Oh, he's not— he's here on Monday, he's not here on Tuesday.

Well, no work goes on if we have a superintendent.

Here's the contract.

Would all this stuff have happened if we had a competent superintendent?

And if we didn't like the guy and things still weren't going well when he was there every single day, we have the right per the contract to request another one, a competent one.

Okay, would all of this stuff have transpired if we had held them to the contract and said, I want a superintendent here?

I mean, I think you touched on it, Liz.

We— I don't know, I don't know if I believe we waived our right to it by ignoring it.

Well, I mean, to allow the work to continue— I'm not, I'm not saying we, we wouldn't have any rights in court.

I'm just saying to allow the work to continue, it's like we waived that requirement because we allowed the work to keep going.

The other part that was troubling to me is, um, the schedule.

10 days to get a schedule, a concrete schedule, and they didn't do that.

And most troubling was GPI giving legal advice in these emails.

That bothered me big time, because if GPI is giving legal advice, why didn't we take legal action?

We had every right to take legal action.

Yes.

So I would say in a perfect world, everything you folks are saying is— I agree with 100%.

But the The bottom line is, is that they committed to a schedule.

They came in and they actually milled the entire roadway.

So now we're in a situation that— oh, I get it.

Even if you run the— no, no, right.

So now, now we have to stop.

We were getting complaints.

We had another— a number of conversations, meetings, uh, with the— is he the owner or plant manager?

I forget, I forget what his, his title was.

And the commitments were just, just coming.

So it's— I don't disagree with Dave.

I hear your concerns and I agree with your concerns and the shoddy workmanship.

I mean, it was just bad across, across the board, which is why my, my suggestion again and my recommendation, just going back to this whole particular situation, is one, from my standpoint, is still Pawtucket Hot Mix just because of the dollar amount.

And from, from where I'm coming from, we need to have GPI to have our coverage, even if they provide somebody.

Um, it might— my concern with them is, is that I don't have faith in, in the people that they're going to provide.

So I want to make sure that we have somebody that's overseeing this and make— probably reviewing it from a civil engineer standpoint.

And can they provide status reports to us?

Oh, absolutely.

GPI— well, they both can, but okay.

But that wasn't happening either though.

I mean, I get it through the emails, I get that, but I'm saying to the board, or because when I looked at everything, I'm like, our signatures go on this.

I mean, where— I know.

I mean, I will say during the project, at least when I was on the board, we were getting updates, okay, to the administrator's report where we're at, okay?

And he was saying, listen, we're bringing these people and we have to meet with them because we got major problems on Anthony Street, okay?

So yes, I won't say it was every 2 weeks.

I won't commit to that because my memory might not be where it should be, but I know we had updates.

You were— there were updates that were coming forward.

And again, you know, it's just— it, for me, again, it just boils down to we had to waste all of our— in my opinion, all of our resources to go out there to correct something that they were supposed to provide.

Okay?

And I will say this, I think it's very difficult to expect Mr. Cabral or anybody from his department to be there every single day overseeing a project, overseeing overseeing the project, that a superintendent that the company's supposed to have there get the job done.

I'm not saying that Mr. Cabral or one of his assistants shouldn't be there periodically throughout the week checking on things.

I just think it's very difficult to ask them to be there every single day when we ask them to do so many other things in town.

Oh yeah, no, I didn't, I didn't mean you should be there every day.

No, I wish we had that flexibility.

No, I meant the super should have been there from Pawtucket.

Yeah, I do, absolutely.

I, I totally agree with you.

It's— yeah, I didn't mean him.

He's not— was never there one week.

They just— it was, it was about a week.

And, and, and I will say this for the benefit, right?

They started out, we had a meeting, you get everything, you have your meeting, everything's always— promise you the world.

They started their work on Barbary and Holly and Bay Hill Road early on, which was fine.

They ripped up those roads, they, they re— uh, reconstructed the roadways out there.

And after watching them do that, not even to be able to match up things to the existing lawns and driveways and not have any, um, uh, level, you know, uh, survey control.

I mean, if nothing else, at least you follow the road and put the driveways and put the grass and everything should be back to meet that.

So they started with a project.

They did initially start when they said they were going to, but then they disappeared for 3 weeks, and then you're hounding them and hounding them to keep it moving And then now we get done with that job finally, and we get a break other than the Lumen C, and we move on to Anthony Street.

And they started out there, they showed up for the first week or so, and they started doing the milling and ground up all the roadway.

Then they disappear again, and the indicators started going off.

We were tooth and nail trying to get them to commit, give us a schedule, the whole bit of it.

It reached a head probably in July where we sat and advised Mr. Cadime we had a meeting.

We called in all the players and said, what the heck is going on?

And even after that meeting, they showed up for the first week, got things moving again.

The berm goes in.

The berm is all over the place.

It did not— didn't match up.

It wasn't lined correctly.

Had to rip out sections of the berm.

And it was tooth and nail to struggle to get that job done before— and they didn't end up getting that job done until well after August.

And even to Bob's point, though, with the project manager there, just the signage, getting the catch basins actually marked so that you could see them visibly with the orange paint.

They went weeks without marking people.

So those are conversations we had.

We even struggled to get them to do that, right, even with the project manager.

So I don't disagree.

It's probably out of— and I sent the email to the board— out of all my experience working with the municipality, this is by far the worst and most extreme case that we've, we've ever seen for this road project.

Like, I've never dealt with anything like this.

And the updates to the board look like we were doing them every board meeting because July 9th, June 25th we updated him, but then we started doing them— paving update from me to Sean was pretty much every 2 weeks in sync probably with the board meetings because it was July 9th, it was July 23rd, August 6th.

We did another one August 8th, but August 20th, it seems like it was every 2 weeks we were giving an update to him to inform the board of what the heck was happening out there.

We had that meeting with them, assured that they're going to show up, and they did have someone out there for a little while, and then again reverted back.

They're not there.

And when you had a question to ask, you could never get a hold of anybody immediately either.

So very frustrating.

Dave, is Arcade Avenue a full— excuse me, full depth It's a mill and overlay, so a 2-inch mill and overlay, and sidewalk work.

So they will have to do similar like they did on Anthony Street, take out all the sidewalk and all the berm, and maybe mill down a little bit more so they can get the sidewalks in uniformly and ADA compliant and get rid of some of those divots, 'cause there are some down, especially at the beginning of the project when you come in from Newman Avenue, there's a couple of areas there that are not draining properly to the drainage structures, That's the area that needs to be surveyed.

Some of the driveways along the whole corridor are at a different grade that we have to be ADA compliant.

We have to make sure we meet them.

So there's going to be some locations that are going to get a little bit more attention.

There is some pavement reconstruction in some areas, right?

There is.

And not a full— but if they are— so at the beginning of Arcade Avenue in particular, when you're coming in from Newman by the cemetery— not the cemetery, from the traffic, the blinking light there.

You come in by the reservoir, you turn from Newman Avenue onto Arcade Avenue.

On the right-hand side of the roadway, you have the berm reveal varies.

It goes from nothing.

It used to be a 6-inch reveal at one point, 5-inch reveal.

Some places it's nothing.

So the water now is just actually going over the sidewalk to the back of it to get towards the reservoir.

There's no drainage structure there.

So those areas are going to have to mill down a little bit more.

They may have to mill down 4 or 5 inches to get things right, but they're going to be surveyed ahead of time.

And there'll be some guidance there from survey to say you got to pay attention to this section to make sure we get the water from here to the structure and the next length of the project all the way down.

We don't want to end up with puddles with a 6-inch or 5 or 4 or 5-inch reveal and have a puddle there because now it doesn't have anywhere to go.

There will be some corrective measures taken.

There's been layer after layer out there.

The pavement is very thick.

It's probably over, you know, 5, 6 inches thick.

They put course on top of course you'll lose the curb reveal.

So they will need in some areas to mill down a little bit more to make the profile work so the drainage at the gutter line flows correctly.

So is the plan based on this MassDOT statement— is Oak Hill Avenue scheduled for next year?

Oak Hill Avenue is going to be at the sole discretion of this board if they want to include it as an add-on to the contract it will be next construction season.

So this— and Oak Hill Avenue also will be mainly an overlay, mill and overlay job with minor sidewalk improvements where needed.

We're not replacing the sidewalks along that corridor, but we are going to do some improvements at the intersections, try to put the ADA ramps in and fix a few areas that have, you know, trenches through them and things of that nature.

All right, so the $2.673,900 is just the Duquesne Avenue.

Yes, I'm just trying to— I'm in my head now trying to figure out if it included the estimate for '03.

Let me see if I have my backup for this.

Give me one second.

My estimate for I don't have the arcade.

As it says on this description, milling and 2-inch overlay, you know, pavement reconstruction as necessary with replacements of sidewalks on Arcade Avenue 2026 and Oak Hill Avenue with 2027.

So this total bid number is not for both roads?

It, um, no, because I'm going to look at the very beginning.

It lists all 3 projects.

It should be for each, all 3 roadways that are in the contract.

Is what they bid on.

That's what it should be.

The 2.6.

And that, yeah, at the very beginning, just let me turn the page at the very beginning there where it talks about the road work, and that'll just clarify it in my mind right now here.

The following projects are anticipated for 2026, and they list Arcadia Avenue north and south.

Projects anticipated for 2026 may include, not limited to, Oak Hill Avenue.

So the quantities include all 3 roadways.

So the $2.6 million is for all 3 of those roadways.

OK.

So they basically gave us a price for— a 2-year price.

Yeah, that's based upon the quantity.

So we looked at each road individually.

That's what I give the MassDOT for my estimating purposes of the Chapter 90 allocation.

And then we put it all together into quantity at the end as the project's bid in the summary.

So they're bidding the quantities for the entire 3 roads for the quantities we estimated.

To me to do that.

Okay.

And then, Bob, in case you didn't do the math, uh, the difference between the low bid and the second bid is just under $600,000— $592,405.

We deduct from that— if we're looking from the savings, the $150,000 we'd pay GPI— then in essence it'd be $450,000 difference between Patucket Ready Mix and J.H.

Lynch.

But then if you add on 100, say, for JH Lynch, that would increase their number.

So we're still looking— by using Pawtucket Ready-Mix, even with GPI, we're looking at savings of $450,000 if my math is correct.

So the higher GPI though, if we go with Lynch, because they have— well, I thought you said we— they said we're still going to use GPI if we get Lynch.

It would just be half the amount of oversight, $75,000.

As a ballpark, I would say probably at— I'm estimating through discussions with GPI that they figured it'd probably be half of— they're still going to have to do the survey work, but it would probably be half the cost.

Yeah, exactly.

So it'd be a less cost than the $150,000 if you went with Lynch.

I thought Lynch has that all in-house to be able to do that, to go out there and mark everything and they can babysit themselves.

What's the contract call for?

What's the scope of work?

Doesn't have any surveying in it, right?

In the bid document itself, there's no survey included, but we, the town, know that we're going to need a little bit of survey because of the project there with the sidewalk involvement.

If a regular mill and overlay job, you don't need survey, right?

You do— we did all the Newman Avenue, we had no survey, right?

You're taking 2 inches of mix out, you're putting 2 inches back in.

The gutter line stays the same, cut and dry.

These projects, you have to be sensitive, and I had to drive the corridor.

I have to look at those locations.

I met with GPI, we went over locations we were having problems.

I took video during rainstorms and said, these areas here, we're going to need to have a little bit of survey control.

I don't need to do the whole corridor, but I need survey control here so we don't end up with puddles, we don't end up with driveway issues, we don't end up with some of the problems that happened on Anthony Street.

In my way of thinking, and I voted last time to go with Pawtucket, with the GPI overseeing the whole project.

If it's— if you look at Arcade Avenue as being 2 sections, we want to do the north section first, Newman Avenue to 44th.

We want to get that.

That's the important one to get done before school, right?

So if we let them do that, and if they botch it all up and everything, we'll fire them and that will be of it.

But I still think with the GPI component in there, on-site responsible for the whole job, I think that's the way to go.

I don't— I will not agree with that.

I think that's, that's a bad idea to bring a company in and hope they do a good job, and then, well, we're gonna fire them, and then who's gonna do the south end side?

They're gonna have— it ain't gonna happen this year.

Ain't gonna happen this year.

I'd rather just hire a company that can get the thing done from start to finish instead of playing a game and So we can discuss this all night long.

Whenever somebody wants to make a motion, I'll make a motion and we'll see how the vote goes, because we can discuss this contract and all the mistakes that were made and back and forth all night long.

I just have one other question about the con— and this is a future, not back.

Um, I'm looking at the contract and under damages and all that, have you or has the town ever put in like a penalty clause, like a fine per day Uh, so we typically for building projects will have liquidated damages.

The problem is, is that you, when you do the liquidated damages, you've got to actually identify the expense associated with it.

So it's a little bit easier on building projects if you're outside and you're trying to move in and you've got rental and things like that.

With, with the road construction, it becomes a little bit of a challenge to say what the real expense is to the town.

So obviously, if we went like a penalty on their part for not showing up, or that kind of thing.

So it kind of falls under the liquidated.

I'm not sure we can actually issue like a fine, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I have a question.

So this bid, we'll just start with the hot mix, 26739.

It covers— I know on the description it seems— why isn't it clearer to me unless I'm missing something?

It talks about Arcade Avenue in Oak Hill, but there's more to it.

Sounds like you said there was— yeah, there's Arcade North and Arcade South is counted as 2 separate roads.

That's why you're saying 3 roads.

Is that what— it's 3.

There's 3 sections identified in a contract.

You have the north section of Arcade Avenue, right?

I think Dave's— Dave's saying that there's going to be on Arcade, there's going to be a little bit more work than just a mill and overlay.

'cause of drainage structures and— Well, the sidewalk work is different on Arcade Avenue than it is on Oak Hill Avenue, 'cause on Oak Hill Avenue, we're replacing the existing sidewalks on the right-hand side of the road if you're traveling from Newman all the way up to 44, all the sidewalks and all the berms coming out.

When Oak Hill Avenue gets done, that's going to be more of a traditional mill and overlay with spot improvements to the sidewalks where there's some defects.

We're not taking everything out on Oak Hill Avenue.

We're leaving the majority of the sidewalks on Oak Hill Avenue are going to stay as they are.

We're probably going to put ADA ramps in to make them compliant at the cross streets.

There's some early at the beginning and not so many as you go further down Oak Hill Avenue away from Central.

But we're not looking to do full sidewalk improvements.

It's going to be spot locations only, limited.

All right, and it designates going into 2027.

How does Chapter 90 money come into play going into 2027?

Would any Chapter 70 money, Chapter 90 money come back?

Would there be additional money, or this is all under the Chapter money we've already— so it's all reimbursable.

So once we receive it, it stays within our accounts until we spend it.

And this year's allocation is in.

It came in at $970,000, somewhere around $970,000 for this year's allocation, which typically is June.

I get the notification, which I just got June 12th, they tell you what they expect the allocation to be, and then they inform you that it's been approved.

So next year's money is out there that we're figuring for Oak Hill Avenue, and whatever's left we spend on other roadway treatments and surface treatments.

But the allocation for next year has already been approved now.

This is typically when they approve the roadway project for the fiscal year.

Oak Hill Avenue's money is the money that's being approved right now.

Arcade Avenue money is already in the bank, if you will, in the Chapter 90 allocation.

We don't spend the money as we get it at the fiscal year.

We spend last year's fiscal year money now, if you will, so we're able to start in the spring.

And off the top of your head, I know we had this conversation a while ago, what was the existing balance in Chapter 90?

I think the existing, but there's still some projects that have allocations and all that.

I think it was around $2.2 million out there, plus the $900,000.

I am in the process right now of closing out some of the old accounts and identifying where we are and reimbursing some of these funds from last year too.

So in the next month, I'll have good numbers for you.

I'm trying— I was trying to close out that and get things up to date for the end of the fiscal year.

I should be close to that, but, you know, towards the mid of July, we should have a good handle on here's what you have remaining, and it still includes some reimbursements reimbursements for Patuxent Hot Mix's work from last year.

So we have all the funds we need to do this?

The funds are available right now to do what we need to do, yes.

When we receive Chapter 90 money, is there a window of time which we have to use it?

No, there isn't.

No, you can keep rolling it.

Yeah, you just got to continue to work with them to submit the reimbursements, and then when you roll it, you just got to get the approval from DOT.

And just for clarification, for this year, the main thing is to take care of Arcade Avenue.

And right now, I wait for the numbers to come in with the bid, because we had a bid going out.

We don't know where it's going to land.

If we have excess money, I have work that I would like to do this year with another company for surface treatments, but I don't know what money I'm going to have available right now to even entertain those projects.

So once we make a decision what we're doing here, I'll have a little bit better handle on what I can do this year on other roadways too, because I have some things in the queue, namely Prospect Street and Reed Street North and South.

I wanted to do some work out there, but until I know exactly what we're spending and look at that balance, I don't know what I'm going to be able to get done outside of this work in this contract.

I do have another, another question reading through the contract.

I know it says that you're supposed to take the lowest bidder unless it's in the public's interest not to do so.

Legally, why is that?

I have a problem.

Why is that in there?

Yes, so that's always in all purchasing.

So we, we reserve the right to reject any and all bids.

So the process is, is it's, it's not, uh, we don't get sued.

They do a bid protest so that we can't start a project until you rectify it.

But when you go from the lowest bidder to the second highest bidder, you have to have documentation submitted to the AG's office.

So you— we would have obviously enough documentation if that is the case to be able to warrant moving that.

So that's always just a catchphrase to— so that when there are bid protests, that we can point back to it to say that we reserve the right to, to reject any and all bids.

I just was surprised to see that in there because to me it shifts the burden onto the town.

Yeah, it does.

But that's It's in state statute, so it allows for it.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

And is it still your position to go with Pawtucket?

Yeah, my recommendation hasn't changed.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other— anything else?

All set, Bob?

I don't know.

It's a lot.

Just a general comment that we— I mean, we saved $20,000 on the insurance.

Nice work with that.

Administration for the town, we're fighting to save every nickel here for this town and spend that money wisely.

I know in this case you'll look at it and you're like, is it really wise spending money with a contractor that has not done well by us?

It's kind of difficult, you know, because you've got to explain it to the taxpayers.

Why are we paying more?

And, you know, there's certain— you know, there's a lot of evidence here why, why it's a mess.

I don't know, it's a lot— there's a lot to think about reading through it, trying to do the right thing for the town and spend their money wisely.

I mean, it's tough to find dollars and save and cut and cut and cut like we've been doing recently, and And, uh, all of a sudden we're gonna spend another $600,000, and, you know, possibly for, for possibly a good reason.

There's plenty of evidence here.

It's just, um, I'm a little torn by it, spending the money when the money is so hard to come by.

When every dollar means something here.

So just my general comment on it.

I certainly see both sides of it.

I'm not sure if everybody in town gets to see both sides of it because they didn't live through all of it.

They don't know all the detail.

But it's not a— it's not a simple thing in my mind.

But I know it's a decision that has to be made.

You're going to get crucified either way.

Less pay for a reputable company that did not— was not so reputable, or pay more and hopefully the job comes out for a real reputable company.

It's not easy being in a spot to choose this company, by the way.

To choose Pawtucket?

No, I'm saying to choose either.

Whoever you choose, you're going to get crucified either decision here.

So it is a lot of money, but it's a big tug-of-war match here.

So Sean, your opinion is you're standing by the lower bidder, Kentucky Hot Mix, with GPI?

So appropriating $150,000 from Chapter 90 to have GPI support and supervise the project.

So if I ask you to make a put you on the spot and make a cogent argument of the 3 main reasons why you think that's a good idea.

What can you tell me?

Well, I think, I think it's everything you just listed.

So I, I don't disagree with where Helion Zorra are and where Dave is, because I think in a perfect world we would be going with Lynch.

That's the easiest decision to make in terms of my mind for, for the project itself.

But to your point, as, as an administrator and just looking at every single dollar When you look at, you know, $592,000, that's almost 2/3 of our Chapter 90 money, right?

So that's just taken away from other roads.

So to me, it really is, like Chris said, this is a tough decision that needs to be made and it's just a balancing act.

So from my standpoint, I just see the $600,000.

It's a lot of money.

I'm hoping that with GPI and having that oversight from day one and just constantly being on there and stopping the project when it needs to be stopped, and making corrective actions that we, we get a good roadway.

My concern though is, is that, you know, I don't have a whole lot of faith.

And you can just see in the emails, it seems like we're not even getting definitive responses from them in terms of whether or not they're going to even finish the project by the end of August.

So there's a lot to be said, but I, I think just looking at dollars and cents, I think that's the, the biggest piece for me.

And as I mentioned in the email, if the board goes with Lynch, you know, I, I I would be happy with that.

I just— my recommendation has to be with the lowest bid because it's so high.

Did I answer your question?

Good, thank you.

If, if we were to take number 2, right, and you have to submit that to the AG, could the AG reject it?

They, they could, but I, I can't see them interfering.

Yeah.

All right, well, nobody— anybody— everybody all set?

Any more questions?

Any more comments?

All right, somebody wants to make a motion?

I'll make a motion we, uh, award the on-call pavement and sidewalk rehab services to James Lynch and Sons with GPI included.

I don't think that's necessary, but if that's what the rest of the board wants to add That's fine.

Was that part of your motion?

I can make it part of my motion.

Okay, is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay, roll call vote.

Let's start with you, Chris.

Chris Zorra, aye.

Michael Healy.

Michael Healy, aye.

Liz?

Nay.

No.

Okay, Bob?

Aye.

Okay, and I will vote nay.

So the vote is 3 in favor, 2 opposed to IAJH Lynch with the GPI oversight, which you felt would be limited in scope compared to if it was— right.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for your recommendation, Sean.

That helped me.

No, thank you.

Yeah, no, that helped me.

I appreciate it.

All right, I gave everybody on the board some information on drones, and if you would share with the chiefs, and maybe at some point we can all have a conversation on that.

Yep.

Okay, 911 Taunton Avenue.

Who would turn in the meeting?

No, I'm just going to keep going for a minute.

Just going to ask a couple questions.

911 Taunton Avenue, is that set for closing?

Uh, so we just— I'm going to be careful because I did not— we don't have board comments on here.

That's all.

I'm just— that's what I'm trying to stop you.

We'll be meeting law complaint.

We're not taking any votes.

Okay.

So we got— we received that from, uh, legal today, so that's going to be on the next agenda for the board to accept The deed, the deed restriction, but deed, they actually signed the deed.

All right, the rest of it I can wait till the 24th.

Okay.

All right, there's nothing else.

I'd entertain a motion to adjourn at 5:48 PM.

Second, Michael Healy.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

So voted.