Recommendation to adopt Plans and Specifications No. R-6985 for the construction of the North Branch Library; award the contract to Woodcliff Corporation, of Los Angeles, CA, in the amount of $11,537,750, plus a 10 percent contingency of $1,153,775 for a total contract amount not to exceed $12,691,525; and authorize City Manager or designee to execute all documents necessary to enter into the contract and any necessary amendments thereto; and Increase appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund (CP) in the Public Works Department (PW) by $8,860,000. (District 9)
regular agenda. And with that, Mr. Kirk. I'm told, is report from public works with recommendation or to contract to Wood Cliff Corporation for the construction of the North Branch Library in the mountain not to exceed $12.6 million in increased appropriations in the Capital Projects Fund by 8.8 million. Cannot turn this over to Councilmember Richardson. Let's watch staff report first on the list. Okay. We got a motion on the floor and we're going to turn it over to Mr. West. This is a great day. We're building a new library. The last library we built was, I think 2006 in District six. Mark Twain Library. I'm going to turn over to our Melvoin, who's the construction manager for this, with Public Works, and he's also supported by our library director, Glenda Williams. Honorable Mayor and council members, are you interested to see the perspectives for this project? I have five boards here. I can show it on an easel or a PowerPoint. Depends on your appetite. I know it's late. I waited. All night. Give it to. Yeah. Let's go through it. This is this is an important night. This is a big moment for for North Palm Beach and for the city. So. Just go. We'll pass out the PowerPoint also for the to be expeditious. This is an incredible project in North Long Beach. We're so excited that we're given this opportunity to construct and manage the construction of this project. But there's been a lot of work done that I need to give credit to Amy Bodak, the director of Development Services, when she was dealing with RDR and this project was the inception of this project started with her and the design was completed under her purview. This is an incredible project for the community and for the city, I would say. To give you some background. It's a one story building. It's consist of 26,491 square feet, includes a historic tower. I just wanted to confirm that we have. When the building was demolished, the old theater was demolished. The tower was kept meticulously. It's in storage right now, and we will bring that tower back and install it in case the tower disintegrates or we're not able to construct this tower. We will replicate it so that the council agenda or the council that talks about replication. But I want to correct that that we have the original tower. So this is part of the historic. So the the total this project if you want to continue this is an exterior view of the project continue. This. This is the floorplan. There are five distinct areas for the floor plan. This is the main meeting room where the public can have access. This is a view of the lobby or the main entrance. This is another area which is looking at the children's library or children's section. I think Glenda should be doing this, but another view. This is I believe it's. A freedom that they don't. This is the children's section again. An adult section. More adult sections. The teenage section. Another view of the teen section. These are perspectives. This is the site and it shows the different planting for this area, the different pallets. More more. Plantation. And that's that's the that's the fastest PowerPoint I've ever done in my life. So with that, we have the project was bid. We received 12 bids and the lowest most responsive bidder is with Cliff Corporation. If. If you have any questions, I would be happy to respond. Okay. Thank you. And thank you all for your hard work on this. I'm going to turn this back over to Councilmember Richardson, then Councilmember Austin. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to begin by acknowledging the residents. It's no surprise that they waited all night to attend this. We've been waiting a decade for this library was one night, right. So I just want to say that I'm really honored and proud to be in the position to finally award this contract. It's been generations of council people, generations of North Pack and community leaders who have invested in this and really had a vision. Now we're in a position to really build the crown jewel to the uptown renaissance. That's what we're doing tonight. And, you know, for folks who might not know, this is this is our this will be our only library in the district. But the other library in North Long Beach was only 6800 square feet, and it was only 25,000 residents there when that library was built. Now we've got over 90,000 residents that we service, and this library we're building is 25,000 square feet. So we're building the library of today in the Library of tomorrow. So I'm really impressed and proud of that. This is this is an anchor to the North Village Center, which will be a mixed use development project once we have the ability to move forward with the redevelopment. So I'm really excited about that. And with that, ala, I, you know, I've already made the motion, so I encourage my colleagues to support this this item. Councilmember Austin. Thank you. And I am equally proud to be here today to hopefully vote on this library, award this contract, and move this of this process forward. It has been a long time coming. I see many of our residents from North Long Beach here who have worked on this project longer than I have. Quite frankly, and I want to acknowledge them as well. And their hard work efforts through the former redevelopment agency Neighborhood Associations, CAG, North Long Beach Community Action Group. They're there. Their hard work and efforts is actually coming to fruition tonight. This is as a Councilmember Richardson said, this will be a this will be transformational for for North Long Beach, for the Atlantic corridor, not only for the North Village, mixed use development that is planned for that area, but for the North Village that exist there where my current council field office is. And there are a number of opportunities for economic development, and we think this will be the catalyst for major change in North Long Beach. I'm so proud to be here tonight and I will be supporting this without reservation. Okay. Thank you. And we're going to open it up to public comment. But, Mr. West, if the if the bid is awarded tonight, when do when will the community actually see construction? We hope by the 1st of October. Okay. You heard that 1st of October. Please come forward for a comment. Make sure you identify yourself for the record. Good evening. My name is Steve Cuneo. I am the general counsel for AMG and Associates, who was one of the other bidders on this project. And sitting in the audience, I can see that everyone is excited about this project moving forward and I'm sure that it will. However, I think it's very important that the Council understand that there is a big protest here and that there have been irregularities in the awarding of this contract, making it contrary to California's public contracting law that I think need to be considered by this council. According to staff. AMG was the second low bidder on this contract. However, we are convinced that there is a fundamental flaw, especially as filled out by the low bidder wood cliff with the bid form that the cities used. And I believe you have copies of not only our bid protests, which were not mentioned in staff's report, but also those those bid forms. Now, California's public bidding laws have two primary purposes. The first is to make sure that all qualified bidders have a fair opportunity to bid on public projects throughout California. The second is to prevent what's called bid shopping by prying bidders. Bid shopping occurs when a prime bidder takes a listed subcontractors bid, sends it out to other subcontractors in an attempt to undercut that bid, get lower prices submitted, and pad their profit on a project. That's one of the primary evils, and that's what the legislature has called it an evil that the public contracting code seeks to prevent. Now, in this case, if you take a look at the bid form, it's got two places, four numbers. It's got. A 21. Item listing broken down by trades, concrete, electrical, those types of things. And then those numbers are supposed to have a total, total bid item on the second page. Those two numbers are supposed to match. And in Amg's bid, they did match, but they did not match in the. Apparent Loews bid in Wood Cliff's bid. And there's a difference of about $800,000. With the numbers in the individual columns being lower. Okay. Why does that matter, you ask? The answer is public contract code 5103. Public contract 50. Public contract code 5103. Gives five working days for a bidder to withdraw a bid for a mathematical mistake. So what this allows, what the form has allowed the low bidder to do, theoretically, is to take those five days, go back to its subcontractors, tell them, hey, we're not sure we can do the bid for this price, but if you can bring your price down a little bit lower, hey, I think maybe we can do it . But if we can't, we may just have to claim that there's a mistake on the bid. Pull it off the table and sorry, nobody gets any work. Now, whether or not that was done in this case, we do not know. But the fact is, it is legally irrelevant. Case law in California is very clear that if there is an opportunity, if there's a situation that allows a bidder to pull its bid off the table for a mathematical error, as in this case, city cannot waive it as an immaterial deviation. It's just it's just straight up California law that that cannot be waived. It's not discretionary. It's not in your option. So, you know, we just want to make it clear here that AMG, we feel, has submitted the lowest bid. It follow the rules. It didn't build a bid mistake. Thank you, sir. Time's up. Next speaker, please. Lori Angell. I was North PAC chair and I was on the PAC since 1996. We worked on this project for ten years, and you folks have absolutely no idea what it took to get us here. And the fact that we have a contractor protesting the bid just kind of falls into the whole thing. So I don't care what it takes. I want I want to get a contract moving. You have no idea what I'm I'm going to be redundant. But anyway, this is a great project. It's an important project. I think. The value of a library and what it offers to the community cannot be understated. Every dollar of investment in a library is an investment into literacy and community, and it's a reduction in the cost and public safety. It really is. So the more people that we can get trained and able to read and able to take care of themselves in the world, the less money you have to spend on graffiti. Quality of life issues, incarceration. The justice system. And people on welfare. And that's already been stated by Glenda. So I'm hoping that you will invest in this important project and finally have this dream that we've worked on for over ten years, come to reality, to serve the community, to act as a center and an activation point for a very important part of our our part of town. And to, you know, frankly, give us something too extreme to be extremely proud of. So it's an opportunity. The problem with the bid, it's I think our legal folks took a look at this. And if they didn't see a problem, I don't I don't know what happens now, but truthfully, I just want this thing to move. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Marina Parker. I'm the program manager for the Uptown Property Community Association. I manage the new Business Improvement District, the new North Library. North Long Beach Library is going to be located right in the heart of the Business Improvement District. So this site is a very important site for us in terms of there's a lot of under undeveloped lots in that area and that's going to be one of the first ones. It's going to be redevelopment. And we're along with the Business Improvement District. We're very excited to to continue this uptown renaissance in that area. And we are extremely looking forward to the library and the construction of the library. And this is going to all be part of this revolution that we have in the north uptown Long Beach. So we are extremely looking forward to your support and we're very excited about all of the changes happening in the north Long Beach area. So we want to thank you for your support on this. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. My name is Dan Press Burg. My residence and information is on file. Let's see, 1995 for me. That started with Susanne Schick. It went to Barbara Kiser, Craig Beck, Pat West, Reggie Harrison, Melanie Phalen and Amy carried the ball, the water and the ball from that point on. And she was in and out of this. This is a great moment for North Long Beach. I'm sure that we'll have a discussion about what's the adverse effects of any legalities. But this is it's time for this to move. This is the one important thing that will anchor and present its heart and to North Long Beach. It's what represents us. We've lost a lot of things on there. There's a lot of vacant lots. And this is the first stop for a renaissance that will actually make North Long Beach shine. So let's let's do it tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Otis Hogan, a resident of the ninth District. My address is 6080 Lime Avenue. I am a member and co-chair of the Highland Park Neighborhood Association, and this project is the one project that all the residents of night at the ninth District and North Long Beach have really been looking forward to. So we would really like to see this move on and I think is something that all of the ninth District and all of Long Beach can be proud of, because libraries is something that everyone. Kid and get behind and support and it means a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Make speaker, please. Hello. My name is Desiree Gutierrez and I am a co-chair for the Coalition for Healthy North Long Beach, and I'm a resident of the ninth District. I also live about one block from the library site. The library promises to create a community center and focus for future development that is desperately needed in our neighborhood. Library Services has been actively seeking community input on services it can provide, and I'm sure going to create dramatic improvement on the resources available in our heavily underserved community. I want to encourage the Council to help North Long Beach move forward this evening. This is in your power and we need your support. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is Brant Walmsley. I also live in the ninth District. I was out walking my dog today and as I got to Atlantic and South, I just counted at the time just what I could see. How many businesses were sitting vacant on that intersection? I counted seven, and I'm really hoping that we could see the development of a library like this that could really bring in some new business and new. Really bring in the idea that uptown renaissance. To be something that can bring something new to that community and something new to economic. Development north on beach. Thank you. Next beaker, please. Good afternoon, honorable mayor and council people. It is a pleasure to stand here this evening to stand for something we've been waiting for for a long time. This is my grandson, Kahlil. He will benefit from this library as a lot of people may know. When we first started coming here and this was all a big blur. He was maybe about that or elementary. We're finishing up middle school. So, you know, it's been a long road. What I'd like to say is it's been several years and in the making a lot of hard battles, but I couldn't be more proud of my previous councilman, Stephen Neal, and my current councilman, Rex Richardson, for getting the job done, making the library a reality. It's a much needed asset for our community. I no longer have to take my grandson to Cerritos. All the school papers, projects and research will be just a few steps away with him being the reader that he is . It'll save a lot of dollars to thank you both again for all your hard work. With that being said, I stand in favor of additional funds needed to complete a library befitting our children. Thank you. Thanks for coming out. Next speaker plead. Guilty. Honorable Mayor and all of the council members. My name is Linda Wilson and my address information is on file. I am a member of the ninth district. I'm a resident there and also College Square Neighborhood Association in North Long Beach. And I just want to say that I was have participated in for a period of time on the meetings and the decisions and all the legwork, background information that residents could be involved in, in making this reality. And so the residents in North Long Beach are very excited about this project. We've looked to and expected it for a very long time. I was a part of the demolition of the old building. I didn't get a brick, but that's a memory and that's history in and of itself. Everything that was required to overcome getting that location has been done. I won't be deterred or upset tonight by the previous presentation or objections by one of the bidders. But we want this library to become a reality and we are urging you and requesting that we are able you're able whoever is going to do it, put that shovel in the ground in October and let's move forward. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, Mr. West said October, so we're going to keep it to that. Next speaker, please. Hi, my name is Hilbert. Then I'm a resident of Long Beach. And I want to first first of all, I would like to thank our Councilwoman Richardson and everyone who participated on the make this library happen, or at least can see it. That is going to happen. And before I leave, I would like to share with you a few facts why library matters. A 2010 report from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences is sponsored by Melinda and Gates Foundation. Details the critical role of libraries in providing access to Americans living below the poverty line, the report stated. Orbital 44% of people in households living below the federal poverty line, which is 22,000 a year for a family of four, use public libraries, computers and Internet access among young adults 14 to 20 years of age. In households below the federal poverty line, 61% use public library, computers and Internet for educational purposes among seniors. Can myself 65 and older. I know I don't count myself. Sometimes I can go to the restaurant, I get deals. So the seniors again, among seniors, 65 and older, living in poverty, 54% use public library computer for health and wellness needs. In addition, System Benton, CEO of the Urban Libraries Council, adds Library libraries are economic engines for communities, helping people find jobs and gain the skills they need to get ahead in their careers. I can tell you hundreds of facts about why a library matters, but I'm here to tell you. The please support this this program. And I want to thank you and I know this project and I want to thank you in advance for your support to the North Branch Library. Thank you. Thank you so much. Next speaker, please. Good evening, Mayor Garcia. City council members. City staff. My name's Curt Davis. I'm a ninth district council resident. Sorry, I'm a little tired. I'm glad you guys could last as long as we could also. When I was a kid, I was able to see the construction of the main branch library and also be able to go in and enjoy the sense of being in a new place, seeing new books, seeing records, seeing just things that I could go on and feast on. I can see that this new library is going to give that hope to the children in my district also. But they're going to have a better advantage to me. They're going to have access to computers. They're going to have access to things that we did that I couldn't even imagine when I was a kid. And I know that's really going to help us in this north district. I mean, there's a lot of things going on, especially with the remodeling and the construction work going on at Jordan High. The library is going to fit in perfect with all that work that's going on in this neighborhood. I encourage you to support this contract and get this library going. I also encourage you to be sure that the funds are budgeted, to be sure that it's not only world class on the outside, but world class on the inside, that we have the proper books, the computers and all the things that we need inside that library that has the full funding that it needs to have all those services. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Albert Jacob Massey. I'm president of AMG and Associates. Well, I'm probably the most least popular person here this evening. I do want to point out a few things my company does primarily 90% of public works projects. I see bid forms of all different types. We just recently completed the Linux Library for the County of Los Angeles. So we understand very, very clearly how important a library is for a community. And I can appreciate what everyone is saying. The issue is, is that you have a flawed bid form. And I would encourage that you take a look at your bid form because it is not in compliance with the public contract code. These are public funds, and it is the intent that all bidders receive the same consideration in presenting their bids to a public entity. Now, the things that I want you to think about as it relates to this project and the bidder that was apparently the low bidder, is that the if you took the average of all the bids submitted, the average bid amount is $12.9 million. The wood cliff bid is approximately $1.4 million lower than the average bid amount. That's 11%. If I bid a project that is 11% low, I am radically concerned about the fact that did I leave something out? Am I going to be concerned about being able to have good subcontractors performing on the project? Is it going to be problematic for me to make sure that everybody is performing correctly? Am I going to be able to meet my schedules? Am I going to be able to meet the demands of the project? My company is not going to interfere with the award of your project if you so choose to do that. Our request from you is you need to evaluate your bid form because I think you have a flawed bid form, as I indicated previously, to have a bid form that takes and totals all of the sum amounts and have that be one number and then say, okay, my total bid amount is a different number, and then give a contractor the opportunity to evaluate if they can do the project by doing potentially bid shopping, which I don't know if if that's what Cliff has done or not, but be able to have a five day period to go out and try to seek other prices from subcontractors to see if they can do that. Project is not a level playing field and that's what the intent is of the public contract code. So I would just encourage you to, if you decide to move forward with your project, I wish you the best of luck. But I would ask that your city attorney and your director of public works evaluate your bid form. Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. And good luck on your project if you go forward. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. My name is Ralph Brooks. I'd like to thank the mayor and the council members for allowing us to be here. I'd like to thank the audience for citizenship for their being here this late in the evening, in this process. I've been I've lived in Long Beach since 1976. Actually, I grew up in Los Angeles. I remember those times when my mom and. I would take the bus from 54th Street to downtown Los Angeles to the public library, and what an ideal it was. And I had older parents, and I'm the youngest of four children. And but the house was during that time, a project like this in Long Beach, a fabric that we've been waiting for. I've been a Long Beach resident four lived in the ninth District for 14 years. I think it's something that we've been waiting for for a long time and that all of the citizens can benefit from. And I would like to see this project move forward. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it back over to Councilmember Richardson. And there is a motion on the floor. Just quickly, could you just respond to the to the comments? I'll turn it over to our public works director. Thank you. I would like to respond to some of these questions or clear the air, basically. First, there's absolutely nothing wrong with our bid forms. It's been tested and used for hundreds of projects that we we use, and it's the same format. This project is actually even simpler than most our public works projects because we have multiple bid items, sometimes 50 or 60 items. This project had only 23 bid items and they were all lump sum. That means every contractor who did the job, they would have one number for that individual line item. It's the previous our other public works projects. You would have X amount of linear miles of concrete or square footage of something. This is all lump sum. So there's absolutely no bid shopping. Shopping possible with this bid. Usually bid shopping happens after the bids. And the lowest contractor will go and conduct that within its own suppliers or within its own subcontractors. In this case, they have not done any subs substitutions. Everything is fine. Lastly, AMG is not the next lowest bidder. The other 42 bidder. Their bid is over 800,000. Above with Cliff and also there's another contractor which is lower than Angie. Lastly, to average the bids it's in or it's incorrect. The bids came very closely. That means the bid package was properly done, the plans were clear, and there were no confusion. The difference between lowest, lowest and the next lowest bidder was 200,000. From the second to third was another 200,000. And then it jumps to AMG, which is $800,000 worth. Cliff made a mathematical error, which is when they totaled all the numbers in their lump sums, they made a math error, and when we did our bit tabulation, we find the error. We contacted them and they accept that accepted the mathematical error, which is minor, and they have not withdrawn from this, this, this application. Therefore, the they are the lowest responsive bidder. And I recommend that the council move forward with this contract. Okay. Thank you. Carl, for the previous question. Okay. So that there's no other comments, we have a motion on the floor, so we're going to go and take a vote on that motion. So, members, please go and cast your votes. Motion carries eight votes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. And. I think there's. Mr. COOK There's an extra yes. At the bottom, which I think is actually me. But I keep you know, I forget sometimes I don't go anymore. So can you remove that one? We we took care of that. Okay. Thank you. I just didn't want it to be recorded. Okay. Moving on to the next item, which I believe is going to go back to the regular agenda. 17.