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Show (Ss&iftenille OisconfBsiues SsirviceS' 1 Engine'srs By GARY R. BLODGETT CENTERVILLE - The Centerville City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to discontinue the consulting engineering service of a firm which had served the community com-munity for the past several years. AT THE same time, the council agreed to employ the services of Nielsen, Maxwell and Wangsgard as its consulting con-sulting engineering firm on a job-to-job basis beginning immediately. The new consulting firm will replace Kaiserman Associates As-sociates which had served Centerville the past several years. COUNCIL MEMBERS agreed that Kaiserman Associates As-sociates had presented bills to the city which lacked detail or were too general in itemizing the work done. "I'm not saying they were too costly, but sometimes it made you feel that way because you were never sure of what you (the city) was paying for," said Councilman Norman R. Wright. THE NEW engineering firm will take over the city's storm drainage and curb, gutter and sidewalk projects as well as advise the city on other engineering problems. The firm will also review and recomfnend for approvel subdivision sub-division plats. Art Maxwell and Gene Nielsen, representing the consulting firm, said they had previously done work in Centerville Cen-terville (late 1950s and early 1960s) and were familiar with many of the city's problems as well as projects. They said they also serve as consultants to Farmington, Woods Cross, Davis County and other communities com-munities in the area. IN DEFENSE of their work with Centerville city during the past several years, Chad Mitchell, Centerville resident and official of Kaiserman Associates, As-sociates, outlined in detail engineering costs to the city this year to date. He met with the council at a special meeting meet-ing last week. He said engineering fees to date have totaled $16,000 but that his consulting firm has been paid only $8,987 - an average of $998.50 per month. BUT HE told the council that unpaid billings to date total $7,024 with one billing dating back to March 10. Of the unpaid bills, $2,789 was for work done in connection with the city's industrial park and $1,927 was due from work done on the city's curb and gutter project. City officials said some of the bills were not paid because they appeared to be too high while other bills were left unpaid because it was not certain just what work had been included on the billing. "WE'VE HAD several contractors con-tractors who do work in neighboring cities tell us that you are too expensive said Councilman Robert Arbuckle. They say they know when they are getting nailed and one contractor has flatly refused to pay his bill to the city because he feels that your inspection fees are too much and 1 tend to agree.' Councilman Norman R. Wright added: "SOME OF your billings are not detailed enough and we don't know what we are paying for. Your plat inspections inspec-tions may or may not be too high, but our local developers sav they are." Mr Mitchell said engineering engineer-ing costs are based on 0.8 percent of the total estimated cost of construction. "THIS IS a lower ratio than used by most other consulting engineers," said Mr. Mitchell. "And we feel that we have given you (city) among the best quality work that can be found in the area." He said the engineering firm has worked on nine subdivisions sub-divisions of 202 lots and a total valuation of $581,847 and three commercial developments of 19 lots with a valuation of $130,347. THIS YEAR, the firm has billed the city for residential lots averaging $22.68 and commercial lots averaging $57.87. The engineering firm recommended that the city increase its cost to the builders to $25 per lot or one percent of the construction costs. MR. MITCHELL also suggested sug-gested that the city hire a fulltime city engineer to do most of the engineering work. "Then consulting engineers would be needed only for major projects," he said. He askea the city council to let Kaiserman Associates represent the city until a city master plan is completed, the city's water system north of Jennings Lane is completed, and the curb, gutter and storm drain projects now underway un-derway are finished. |