A resolution approving a proposed Second Amendment between the City and County of Denver and WSP USA, Inc. concerning additional professional services associated with the Concourse Expansion Program at Denver International Airport. Amends a contract with WSP USA, Inc. to add $27,000,000 for a new contract total of $87,000,000 and 2.5 years for a new end date of 12-31-2024 for additional professional services associated with the Concourse Expansion Program as well as controls & quality assurance work at Denver International Airport in Council District 11 (202262566). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 5-9-22. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 4-6-22.
All right. Thank you, Stu, for the answer in Carolina. And we're going to go ahead and move on. Thank you, Councilmember CdeBaca, for those questions. Madam Secretary, if you would, put the next item on our screens. Councilmember Sandoval, would you please put resolutions three seven, seven through 380 on the floor for adoption? I move that resolutions 377, 378, 379 and 380 be adopted in the block. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded questions or comments by members of Council. Council Member. Sawyer. Thanks, Senate President. As I mentioned in committee, I'm not comfortable moving these contracts forward. I've got two concerns. The first is that once again, the airport is asking us to vote without all the information they told us in December. They'd be back in January to provide their CP program information, and they didn't. Now they're saying it will be in May, in two weeks. I hope it is. But without that information, I'm not comfortable voting yes. Additionally, I have a couple of concerns about these contracts because they are extensions to contracts that are already in existence. I certainly understand the time crunch at an airport like them in getting this work done, but I also don't think it's appropriate that we're looking at contracts. Two of these five are over $1,000,000,000 at this point. For us not to send those back out to bid is just not acceptable. I don't I don't see why Dems should have to get around the contracts bid process than the RFP process that's set forth by our city policies and ordinances. I believe that one is actually Executive Order eight, but I'm not 100% sure. But I do think it's important that these contracts go out to bid, that we are keeping an eye on our contractors and that we're getting the best value for our residents. And I can't say in these contracts that we are. So I'm going to be a no tonight and also going to be a no on 381. I know it's been called out separately for a different issue, but that is also included in these contracts. Thanks, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. Councilmember Kinney. Thank you very much. I have really agonized over this same issue that Councilman Sawyer mentioned, which is the lack of competitive bids for this particular set of contracts, as well as the prior one that we did, the Great Hall. I actually do understand and agree that Executive Order eight includes an exception for special circumstances. And I do think that that there are circumstances involved in these contracts. And, you know, I'll give you an example of where I myself have faced a decision like this. When I was at the Union Station Project Authority many years ago, we had a contractor on site doing pre-development work for the bus station and the rail lines that are now around Union Station. And we had anticipated a long, long developed federal loan that got delayed. And we had a choice to make about paying a contractor to stay deployed on the site in spite of the fact that we didn't have the money to finish the project and, you know, sending them home, sending the massive crane and all of this, you know, specialized equipment that they had brought to the site home and then rebidding and restarting the project when the federal loan came through. And I remember sitting in that seat and thinking, you know, this is crazy, too, you know? But you start to learn about the cost of taking work down and redeploying it. And so I, as a member of that board, made the hard decision to keep the team deployed rather than stopping, rebidding, restarting and voted for that process. Understanding it wasn't an ideal situation. You know, I think that the lesson needs to be, though, that those circumstances have to be really rare. And I think that, you know, the Great Hall case was very rare. We had a very strange, you know, situation with the termination of a contractor. We had serious security upgrades that frankly needed to be made. It was an it was it was a much easier case than this one. And so I have spent a lot of time, you know, really contemplating. I spent time today with Phil Washington talking about what public competitive contracting brings and what scrutiny this decision had in terms of the performance of the contractor, in terms of raising the risks. You know, I wasn't in those rooms. You know, I was in the room when I when I voted on that Union Station situation that I described. And I could see the costs and I could see each of. You know, contractor performance metrics are being weighed. I don't have that ability here, but I did get pretty satisfactory answers as to the type of scrutiny that this project went through. And I will say this, we are the third busiest airport, and I do believe the facility needs to continue to expand to accommodate that. We perhaps didn't expect to be in this position quite as quickly as we were. But I do have to say, the importance of the project, the scrutiny that it took with, frankly, a contracting method that I'm not totally comfortable with, it was much closer to the line for me. This one was I share all that, you know, to say that I am going to be supporting the bill today based on a set of practices and procedures that I understand have been put in place in the airport. In terms of the CEO individually signing off on any contract extensions, individually reviewing contract extensions to make sure that it wasn't just that we didn't have ourselves organized in time to put something out to bid. It doesn't count as a special circumstance if you use it over and over again. Every city project is urgent and every city project takes time to bid and every city project gets more expensive while materials costs or labor costs go up. So none of those things are unique. What is unique here is the opportunity to save millions without redeployment and some of the urgency of the growth of the airport and being able to meet that demand on a short timeline. Those those were some things that were a little bit prompted by the pandemic recovery with domestic travel recovering more quickly than international. Those are some things that are unique enough that I have come to the decision that I was supporting this today. But the culture of our airport has to demonstrate its commitment to competitive bidding. And it's not enough to say that we're competitively bidding subcontracts. Primes make a lot of money. Primes control schedule. They control the sequencing of work. They control the selection of subs. They matter. So don't bring another of these extensions, you know, to special circumstances in a row is pretty extraordinary. I won't believe you if it happens again. And I hope the those who come after me won't either. You have to be committed to competitive bidding and you need to plan ahead for it. So you should be thinking now, right in your capital improvement plan, about what projects you want to be putting out for procurement today to bring to this council in three or six months. You know, it's a long process plan ahead. That's the message. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember King Beach Kimmich. Madam Secretary, roll call on resolutions 22, dash 37737837, nine and three eight. Please. SAWYER. No. Torres I. Black eye. CdeBaca. No. Clark. I. Flynn High. Herndon High. High. High. Cashman High. Kenny Ortega. Sandoval, i. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce results. Two names. 11 eyes. 11 Eyes. Resolutions 377 through 380 have been adopted. Madam Secretary, please put the next item up on our screens for us this evening. Councilmember Sandoval, would you please put resolution 381 on the floor for adoption?