Davenport Brothers’ low bid of $583,429.29 was accepted by the Belleville Downtown Development Authority for phase one of the city’s streetscape work due to begin this month.
The other bidder was Warren Contractors and Development for $951,195.25. A third bid was disqualified because it didn’t have the required bid bond or certified check included. The bids were opened at the Feb. 24 DDA meeting.
Phase one — which includes asphalting of South Street and streetscape work along South Street and renovation of Fourth Street Square — is expected to be done before Strawberry Festival in June.
Phase two, in the downtown area, begins after Strawberry Festival and will run through October. That work, which will be done with the help of a Michigan Department of Transportation grant, will be bid out under MDOT guidelines in June.
A MDOT grant of $675,000 has been awarded for road work. A different MDOT grant of $458,314 is for streetscape work.
Before the vote was taken to award the bid, Harlan Davenport got up to give a statement, a highly unusual move for a bidder waiting for a decision on his bid. He said he would say a few words and then leave and would take no questions.
He had a prepared statement on a small piece of paper and he read from the paper, addressing the DDA, the businesses and residents of Belleville.
“Davenport Brothers and our families give thanks in advance for considering us for the streetscape,” he began, adding that some people in the city share different opinions on the improvements.
“We understand your frustration in these tough economic times,” Davenport said.
He then described a scenario with his sons, who work for him, asking him if he got the job he bid on and when he says no it breaks his heart.
Davenport continued, “On a brighter note, the new high school construction is starting soon…
“I hope we can all remain friends,” he concluded and left the room.
Then Spicer Engineer representative Dave Vallier reported on the bids.
He said after studying the bids and refiguring the numbers, the Warren bid went up a couple of dollars.
“We have worked with Davenport Brothers in the past and we recommend Davenport Brothers for the bid amount, subject to change for the number of easements we are trying to get.”
Gary Snarski made the motion to award the bid to Davenport Brothers and Sabrina Richardson-Williams seconded the motion.
DDA member Ken Voigt said that before the vote was taken he’d like to say that he is not comfortable with the figures given out the previous week to select DDA members.
“I’m very comfortable with those numbers,” replied DDA chairman Kerreen Conley. “I’d be very happy to discuss them with you or anyone else, but not here.”
She said there were questions on whether the DDA had enough revenue to support the $4.2 million bond for the downtown work, and also have enough money to help the downtown businesses with marketing.
“I ran the numbers based on numbers from Wayne County … just an estimate to provide a level of comfort,” Conley continued. She said the bond attorneys hired by the DDA look out for the best interests of the city.
She said the DDA took a vote and pledged to pay off the bonds with its Tax Increment Finance revenues and after that vote the issue left the DDA table and went to the City Council.
“There is enough revenue to pay the obligations,” Conley stated firmly, adding she did not think to bring the figures that evening that Voigt asked about since the funding was not an agenda item.
“I had questions on a couple of numbers,” said DDA member Mike Colletta. “I feel comfortable in awarding the bid to Davenport tonight.” He said he studied the numbers from a meeting the day before and that day and he’s more comfortable.
“Don’t we hire financial people to look at these things?” Colletta asked. “The issue is will we have enough money for anything else after we pay the bond? There are some discrepancies … with capital improvements included in one and not another … There’s considerably less for capital improvements because we’re doing one heck of an improvement from the bridge to the railroad tracks. I’m comfortable in voting to award the bid to Davenport.”
“I don’t have those figures and I would feel more comfortable voting if I had questions answered to my satisfaction and they haven’t been answered,” Voigt said.
“There are some discrepancies. I’d like clarification and I haven’t had that,” Voigt said, noting that with the bad economy the income is different.
Richardson-Williams, who is the newly elected treasurer of the DDA, said she has the paper distributed to some DDA members and she has confidence in Conley and is impressed with her knowledge.
She said a cousin once told her, “A jealous man will never work and a scared man never takes a chance.”
She pointed out that a couple of bonds are coming to maturity, so there will be extra money.
Mike Windiate, president of the Main Street Merchants Association, said when those bonds mature, the city will also lose the tax revenue associated with the bonds. It will be a wash.
Windiate said the city council could look at the finances and say this project doesn’t work, and, “I haven’t heard that.”
Mike Renaud, a retired Ford financial person, said the city needs money in the general fund to pay salaries to avoid layoffs. He asked if the DDA will have money for that.
Conley said the $57,000 the DDA gives to the city is not to pay salaries, but for capital improvements in the DDA district. In 2014 that agreement expires.
“The city must have some plan to cover that,” Colletta said. “Ask them why they approved it.”
“That was the obligation through 2014 and I would assume the city would sit down and negotiate the future with the DDA,” Conley said.
When asked about whether the DDA shouldn’t be considering the reaslity of no growth during these times, Conley replied, “I don’t think you can assume no growth for 20 years. That’s crazy.”
Councilwoman Kim Tindall said the DDA was projecting a $500,000 fund balance.
Conley said she tried to take a conservative approach. She said they anticipated there will be costs over the $4.2 million for the streetscape/road work, but they won’t know until that project is bid.
Colletta said he was told $668,000 fund balance at a meeting.
Business owner Mike Foley, a former DDA member who has been studying the present finances, agreed the figure was $668,000.
Foley asked if when they pay their bills that evening, if they weren’t already deficit spending for 2009-10.
Conley said they have $120,000 in a line item for matching grants for the façade program (which has no takers).
She agreed some was spent, but it will be replenished from the bond proceeds.
Foley said on June 30, the end of the fiscal year, the fund balance will not be $668,000, but will be eroded away by bill paying.
“You are deficit spending,” Foley charged. “Some money will be reimbursed and some not.” He complained that he is only privy to numbers he must acquire through the Freedom of Information Act.
Foley said there will be deficit spending from the cash reserve for the first seven years and there will be no money for business retention, business recruitment or matching grants.
The DDA voted 6-1 to award the phase one construction bid to Davenports, with Voigt voting no. Ryan Taylor and Mayor Richard Smith were absent.
Phase Two
In related business Vallier from Spicer said he met with MDOT over phase two of the project and it will be bid out on June 4.
Vallier said all bidders will be pre-approved by MDOT, so the low bid will be the winner.
He said to make sure the project moves ahead quickly, the contractor will be fined $2,000 a day if not done by the Oct. 31 deadline. If they finish ahead of time, they will get a bonus of $2,000 a day up to 13 days.
If everything falls into place, the Main Street project will run from July 6 through Oct. 12, Vallier said. There is a built in contingency for weather, he added.
After Vallier said MDOT had required changes in the original plans to meet its standards, Councilwoman Tindall asked if those changes would make the project cost more money.
Spicer’s Ron Hansen said there has to be a 4-6’ clear zone on the sidewalk and MDOT is very strict with this. Some light poles will have to be moved and the sidewalk ramps in place have gradings that don’t meet MDOT standards.
“In the big picture, with the $1 million worth of grant money, the net amount far exceeds the additional expenses,” Hansen said.
Colletta talked about ways to expedite the Main Street work so merchants won’t be cut off for longer than necessary.
Vallier said the contractor will go down one side of the street at a time. He will tear out half of the road, curb, and gutter and prepare the ground and lay two lanes of concrete. He said traffic will have to go down to one lane during the concrete work to leave space for the equipment.
Once the road is down, the curb in and the streetscape done, the contractor will move over to the other side of the street and do that side.
Colletta said he wants to open up the parking in the business area as soon as possible.
“We got a pretty darn good bid for phase one and I expect phase two also,” Vallier said, adding, “We’ll work with the contractor and we’ll encourage them to expedite… We have incentives.”
Vallier reported that they expect to have 61% of the easements signed for streetscape work on private properties.
Some temporary easements are being offered for replacement of sidewalks on private properties, but the main streetscape fixtures require permanent easements.
Renaud asked if there were any “must haves” they haven’t gotten, places where there would be a real hole in the design if permission wasn’t obtained, and he was told there were such spots.
City Manager Diana Kollmeyer said she, Keith Boc, and Carol Thompson met with Walt Wendling, who is obtaining the easements, to discuss the problem of getting easements. Wendling has been working 2-5 days a week for the last month.
Kollmeyer said the city offered to give assurances for new sidewalks and new retaining walls without charge if they would sign the easements.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Kollmeyer said.
“He’s a perfect gentleman and he’s explained very well,” Windiate said. “It’s just that some don’t want easements on their deeds.”
Ron Vesche of Main Street Flowers said if he owned Mr. Muffler and sold it for a doctor’s office, for example, and it needed parking spaces, the city might not approve a new use because the current parking spaces had been given up for streetscape fixtures.
“You never know when a man might come with a fistful of money,” Vesche said.
“It would be amazing if any of you visited the merchants and asked, ‘How’s business?’” Vesche said to the DDA members.
“How do we live for 12 weeks without income?” Vesche asked, referring to this summer’s construction. “We don’t come here to meetings to badger you,” Vesche said, noting the merchants were trying to survive.
“We’re going day to day hoping we can have a good day and pay some bills,” Vesche said.
Colletta said he doesn’t want to break the rules about using public funds for private business, but, “Let’s bend those suckers as far as they can go.”
In other business at the March 25 meeting, the DDA:
* Approved paying $350 a month for six months to Main Street Computers for optimization of the new DDA web site, as recommended by the marketing committee;
* Approved a budget of $5,500 for promotion of the DDA Buy it in Belleville website. Jane Vesche said she was disappointed, since the items they plan to spend money on are the same as last year and, “It didn’t work.” She also said they have been working on the web site since last year and it’s still not up;
* Voted unanimously to go out for price quotes on an LED community events sign, even though the city ordinances do not permit such signs;
* Learned Bricco has cleared everything up with the Vesches for the damage done to their store during Main Street construction last year;
* Heard Kollmeyer say so many light poles have been knocked down lately that, “We’ve been getting checks from insurance companies like crazy”;
* Heard Voigt say that 22 years ago when the DDA did the original streetscape easements, he was of the impression there were recorded and they weren’t and it worked. He said maybe the new easements could not be recorded;
* Heard Renaud say he saw a picture of a Belleville Lake sunset from Horizon Park, with the ropes between the piers, on Good Morning America and it identified the location as Belleville, Michigan. Tindall said maybe they could market Belleville with the line, “As seen on Good Morning America”;
* Heard Windiate ask if the city were to ask for more financial help, since it is losing income, would the DDA be able to help. Conley said the DDA cannot just hand money to the general fund for something outside of the district and, “The law is pretty clear.” Windiate said the average home in Victoria Commons (which is in the DDA district) sold for $190,000 at the beginning and in 2009 they were selling for $79,000, which means the DDA will be losing revenue. He asked if the DDA had the right to levy 2 mills without a vote of the people to get money? Conley didn’t answer, but Voigt said the enabling legislation allows that. Conley said the DDA has no intention of doing so;
* Heard Foley note that the taxes on a $90,000 house and a $190,000 house are different and the DDA hasn’t felt that hit yet. “You saw the figures and you voted your conscience,” Foley said to the DDA. “When you get ready to do projects in the future, there won’t be any money”; and
* Heard Councilwoman Tindall say her taxable SEV on her Victoria Commons house is down and in the last two calendar years her taxes went down 15%. She said she paid $200,000 for her house and now she could sell it for $80,000.
Spicer Engineers were paid another $48,000 on the March voucher list by the DDA, bringing its total on the Main Street projects to $650,000.