001Hi. All right. I'd like to um take a motion to open the meeting. May I have a first, please? Heather. Second, Lisa. All in favor? Thank you. Um please rise for the pledge of allegiance. 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. So, yes, it says roll call here. And just um for the record, Bill Walman asked that we say that he was at um the senior banquet this evening. It was his intention to be here, but there's a conflict with the senior banquet at the um same time. Um all right. So, we are going to take um item number two, additional matters. Did you want to lead us off with this?
002So what we have here is the uh the bid information for the project has three major components. One is adding air conditioning to all the teaching spaces uh throughout the district. Uh the condensate tanks at Lloyd Harbor Westside to we have major re issues with them to make sure we have heat come in um October and to finish off the the work that has been done at the westside kitchen. is purchasing the equipment for the refrigerators and the the freezers and the serving line and the like uh to finish that project off uh and all the electric that's involved in doing that. So that's what these three components are. We were looking in the past for our vendors to provide what their profit margin would be in doing this work. Uh and yesterday afternoon Mr.
003Guerilla was able to sent us an email which we shared with the board that all the vendors said approximate that their profit margin for the work is at 15%. Um that's what they stated in the email and we have here uh so uh I was hoping we could get together we have anything we want want to discuss about that. Anthony has been here. He's been well verssed on on the work. Like I said again, it allow us to hopefully get the work done over the summer at this point um to to have the air conditioning, the heat, and um the the work in the Westside kitchen may be a little challenging to get it done in time with the ordering, but we'll be able to probably do that over a long weekend like maybe in
004in bits and pieces. Okay. And Mark has arrived. He's just Oh, okay. That's for later. Okay. But I realized that Wait, is it on here? Are we going to vote on the resolutions tonight? Yeah, I we did. We We talk about putting those It's not due until July, so Oh, I didn't Okay, we'll we'll talk about it at the All right. After this. Yeah. Over the weekend. It's all right. I didn't know. It's fine. It's fine. I didn't know. I didn't know what the plan was. I just wanted to get them out there. Get them. Yeah, maybe. I told them to come around to the side. Have you seen He sent a text to all of us. I'm outside. I said, "Come to the side door. We're in here." Where we usually start. It's riveting.
005This meeting's riveting tonight. Come to the side door, Mark. We're in here. Um Okay. So, 15% which is what the other vendor that's the the first vendor had come in at. That seemed reasonable. That seemed reasonable. Exactly. Okay. And so and your and the email that you shared with us says the same says the same that all four vendors came in saying that it's approximately 15%. And the other question that we had I think was about the allowances right there were really high allowances and you had stated and that we had agreed you reminded us that we agreed at a previous meeting that they cannot spend any allowance money without coming back to us first. Right. Not only would they have to come back to the architect, it would have to come back to us,
006the district, to allow for any allowance money to be spent. Correct. Great. Hi, good evening. Hello. All right. So, um, we are just reviewing the email from Mr. Gill. Mark, um, you should have, does he have a packet over there? Does he need a packet? Thank you. So, we're saying, uh, that first that Mr. Gill sent the email yesterday afternoon stating that the vendors came back indicating that their profit margin is approximately 15% for all four of them, which was shared with you yesterday. And then we just discussed that anytime any allowance money is requested to be utilized, uh the district could ultimately have to say the yay or nay uh whether that money is to be used uh during the project. Christine, does it look like the architect fee did it go lower than
007it had been before? It says 5%. I thought he got 6%. No, it was five always. Since I've been here, it's been 5%. Okay. So, this 160 is for Lloyd Harbor and Westside. It's not 160 each, right? The H value. Correct. She's looking at the 160 for in solid. That's a total. Yes. For both projects. Yes. So, his response was they didn't want except for one trade provided. The others didn't feel they had to provide it because it wasn't required. Correct. And the way I think is he said it's generally 15% profit, right? But they wouldn't they wouldn't actually put that in writing and quantify it. They did indicate in the email and and let me see if I do have it here. I'm sure I do. I'm said all I could get all I
008could get was trade to say that the profit overhead is roughly 15%. Right. Roughly. So why wouldn't that doesn't seem egregious. Why wouldn't they put that in writing? I I I do not know why. I I I cuz it probably isn't right. Well, we're getting in from the architect stating that then that's why we printed the email out. But if you're trying to win business and your p your profit margin with overhead's 15%. I don't think anybody's going to find that um unreasonable. Why wouldn't you just provide that information? I I could not tell you why. I don't. Well, it's certainly suspicious and this district has a history of not getting information to make good decisions on. I want Do who who puts these bids out? Is this Do you write these bids or does
009Mr. Gorilla write the bids? Why wouldn't you ask for information about profit in there? I mean, the architect writes the bids based on the specs. I I don't I'm not part of that bid writing. I don't think they're even being honest on that, though. Like, you there's no way of proving it, right? What do you mean prove it? It's it's numerical. Say this is how much we could still be getting ripped off if that's what you mean. Not if we ask for an itemization um of the costs of the hours approximate hours. Like why wasn't this part of the bidding process? Especi Do did do the did these bids go out after the bathroom incident? These were after bath. So, we just paid $1,800 a square foot for very bare bones bathrooms and then we
010send out bids and don't even try to get our arms around what we're paying for something on the next how many millions of dollars is it? $2 million. I mean, that is we just went through this that we don't want to overpay and then we send out bids when we don't know if we're overpaying or not. We still don't. and the architect's like, "Hey, I couldn't get them to to to give this information." Obviously, they don't want the job or they don't want the business very much. If someone asks me, "What's your profit margin on a job?" I'm going to tell them this is my profit margin if I want the business. Otherwise, look, if if this board feels it's okay just to again just approve something without the knowledge of knowing if we're getting
011ripped off or not, that's certainly our prerogative. I I I am not on board though. So, Mark, I just want I just want to say something because I think I'm a little confused. If it's not about to me asking someone what their profit is doesn't necessarily answer the question if we're getting the right price because if they're if you could find the light for $20 they and then they're charging us 15 they're making 15% they could be charging us $600 for the light they're still could make 15%. Do you see what I'm saying? Like you need to know it's not about their markup per se what they're making. She's right. It's about what what it costs to actually do the job and then you can say okay well what are you gonna mark it up?
012So the way the way we would want to know this information is how much are materials what are the materials and you know how many hours work the labor etc. And based on that you can figure out the profit. You're right. Um, you need to know enough information to know what the costs are. You know, what prevailing wages are, how many hours are going to be worked, and and the total cost of the project. And the difference is the profit. And if they're only booking a 15% profit, that's certainly reasonable. But we don't know if that's the case. We don't know if they're marking up $150 lights to $1,100. But we knew we know that now that happened in the bathroom. We just want to make sure that's not happening again. And I do not
013know why we're asking uh again bid sending bids out without trying to understand that information. So should we say that if they're not going to itemize things, we're not going to use them? I mean, is that the solution to this? It's partially our fault for not sending out a bid requiring information we need because they've been getting away with this for how long has this been going on? Years. Well, that's not that's neither here nor there. I think we need to figure out what we're doing with we've never asked it seems. Christine, is it something that we can do even though the architect has been doing it? Can we make a form that we want them to fill out with specific requirements that the board needs, the district needs before we because I why don't
014we just do that? That seems like a simple rather than I'm sure the bid specification book that goes out to the vendors can be added to and detracted from whatever we feel. The norm the norm in the industry is the plans are developed in the spec, you know, the big plans that are developed and the vendors get them and they're giving you a price that doesn't itemize. That's how but the the industry is obviously out of control, right? The norms and the industry have led to this like bleeding of money by school districts, which is really a shame. $1,800 a square foot and you want to follow the norm. Sorry, I'm done with the norm. You're saying it's not I'm saying it's not in there currently. It doesn't mean we couldn't. So, let's do let's
015let's then I I don't know how much more time we have to spend than discussing this if we aren't happy with the information here. Am I correct that we needed this done quickly though in order to get the work done by September? For air conditioning to be done by September, we would need this done now. So, it's whether or not we want to figure out I mean, can you bring in temporary air conditioning for September and wait and make sure we're not I mean, this is $1.2 million. Sorry, Lisa. And scoreboard also. The scoreboard is a different scoreboard's different. There's there's a little tie to the electric for the that we've done at the junior senior high school would allow power to be in the fieldhouse to be then tapped into for the scoreboard. uh
016the power I don't think there's enough power in each location to bring in temporary air conditioning. Um so part a lot of this work is running the electric to the location where the air conditioner would be. So what did we do this September when it got hot? Luckily this past September it wasn't hot but what are we going to do because it's supposed to be it's going to be very hot. So on so not every classroom has an air conditioner. A lot of them do right. Uh we would be looking to consolidate classrooms, move people to the large area spaces that do have air conditioning. Luckily at the junior, senior high school, it's testing it would be the most challenged with the most students. So we'll be moving the testing schedule to be in places
017that are cool during the day, but at most you have a 120 130 students taking a test at the same time. I really thought we said we had enough power for every classroom to have an individual air conditioning temporarily. No, I'm thinking so. No, I think the part of the when we did the traffic light money, part of it was for air conditioning and bringing the electric up, but I feel like bringing this electric up price to me looks like we could build our own heating and cooling building for what they're charging for this. I mean, it's really outrageous. Um, what about to the idea of having a third party involved, architect or contractor? I mean, we talked about this months ago. We just we never moved on it. I guess I'm trying to remember
018now to protect us because we're we're the school board officials, right? We don't even if I had I'm not so sure I'd be able to make an out. So, if we had a professional, someone locally Well, that's what we're we're paying the construction management fee is a local person who we pay. Well, we we obviously have doubts about I don't know who we could ask about this. Okay. Well, someone I think in the in the community that would be a good person. So, are we looking We had the vendors provided a a rough estimate of like I'm looking at one here from Stalco that that broke down uh this one is that the Westside Kitchen base has 21 different components broken down. And in our last meeting, we discussed wanting to know what the profit
019margin was. So, I just want to make sure if wherever we do going forward, we we leave here with a clearcut exactly what we're asking for if this isn't it. Yeah, I think but I think we're not going to figure out in this meeting right now in this brief discussion portion what that form should look like. I do think that it's worthwhile to call a couple of experts and ask what should a form like this look like? What does it look like in other industries? And this is something that maybe should we should talk about maybe making like some a point person on the board who does this and works it out with uh we've talked about putting together like a community um committee or something, right? Go ahead, Lisa. Oh, go ahead. I was
020just going to say, have we asked what other districts their architects use? Could we reach out to other districts to see if they're asking for more what they're asking for? That may give us some ideas what to in speaking what we've received is what we received here is above and beyond with the districts I spoken to. They're asking for even less. Yes. Yeah. Well, and if you trusted your architect, you wouldn't need anybody else. So, the other district aren't happy either. So, yeah. I mean, how are we getting away with buying the air conditioning units directly to avoid markup? So, we could just purchase them on our own. We don't need to go through a vendor to make the purchase and we don't need to go through Boseies and we don't need to we would
021get oh we'll buy them off a contract. That's right. So if if a contractor or an architect were to give us an itemized bill, you know, we could see the large items. We can't just go to Costco and like pick up the Well, I mean, if we're doing if they're bidden they're the least expensive. We we would we would Yeah, we would. And can we have a second opinion on the electric in our building and whether or not it actually can manage the electric on the I don't think it's the quantity of electric that's running it to each of the rooms is is necessary. Like there's not like I I guess if it's going to be installed here, there isn't an outlet to connect the electric for the uh for the air conditioner. So it
022has to if it's say it's being installed in this window, there isn't an outlet nearby. So we have to run electric to that location for the AC to be powered. So there's enough in the building. We have 4,000 watts. Just adding the outlets is going to cost us running the outlet half a million dollars. Yeah. Across it, but it's 91 units. We're not adding more. I thought we added a little bit more. I thought it was to bring up the electric just to run the electric just to add outlets. Panels and outlets, Joe. So they just need to add panels in certain parts of the building to run those outlets. But we're not bringing more electric to the building. Oh, there isn't any building coming to the building. We would just get a whole bunch
023of extension cords, right? I think that would be a fire code. There's a little violation. No extension cords. I wasn't on that. I was thinking the same thing. Um, okay. So, just to keep us on time here, do we feel if we're going around the room, do you feel like you have you'd like to make a decision on this tonight or you'd like to postpone one more time to get better bids and a better understanding of what's in the or do we think we should move so that we can get the air conditioners in? Lisa, well, can I just be clear? I mean, are we asking for a new bid process? Are we rewriting the the request for proposals to include like broken down items or are we going back to the to the contractors
024and asking them to adjust their documents? I I think I hear what Alec is saying. Do we want to act on what we have right now? And I think if we did something good question though, yeah, but I think if we did something different, we'd have to unawward this bid and write a new bid specification. Right. So I'm trying to think of the timeline. You know what? Either way, if we don't move tonight, we basically miss the fall. So then that buys us plenty of time to look at this. Yes. Yeah. And maybe we can in in the next few days and I'm willing to reach out to somebody that I think I you know them well that maybe can just look at this and say, "Oh, that maybe their reaction will be like, oh
025my god." You know, or maybe they'll be like, "Well, it's kind of on on par." So wouldn't that make you feel better? Yeah. Just so maybe we could get that rolling quickly. And all right. Well, we do have another meeting in maybe next week. Maybe next week. Yay. So, let's let's Why don't we take a motion to put it on pause for a week? Sure. Table it. We'll take another look and um come back to it. Can I'm sorry. Can I just ask We've already asked them for this information though. Do we think that they're going to move? I don't even think we're asking them for more information at this point. I think I I agree with Kate. I would like we we have a community member whose business is this. Let's why don't we
026just say fresh eyes take a look at this. So, we're looking for a review, not another review for now and then we'll come back together and discuss in public where we stand. And if possible, if it's not possible, I don't like I hate the idea of spending money on something that we are being taken advantage of because there's a time crunch and there when there are really hot days, it is terrible, but there are creative ways that we've been managing it for years. So, I think another if a few hot days in September, God help me that it's not 90 degrees every day in September. But, um, we will figure that out as well. We figured it out for the last how many ever years this district has been in existence. And I just don't
027think it's fair to the community and to their funds to to continue to go down this path. Um, can I take a motion to to table this? Um, first, Heather. Second, Lisa. Any questions? All in favor? Thank you. Kate, if you want to share, I'll get that information to that person tonight if you want me to so they can get working on it as soon as possible. Yeah, talk about it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, for sure. I might know them. We probably do. Um Okay. So we are now or is oh we were I was going to walk on um if everyone's comfortable take a motion to add an audience to visitors portion here. Um so may I take a motion to add audience to visitors? Heather second. Bruce all in favor. Thank you. Um this
028is our audience to visitors portion. And I don't have the paragraph I read here, but everyone in this room is well aware of the stipulations regarding audience to visitors. Please approach the microphone if you would like to speak. Okay. May I take a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of legal and personnel matters? Heather second. Lisa, let's go. Thank you all in favor. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Heather, were you the first? Were you the first?