Corbett against hiring additional city consultants

In case you forgot, Mayor Ron Corbett spent some time in his run for City Hall a year ago saying that the city needed fewer, not more consultants.

Corbett on Thursday was noticeably absent during a lunchtime City Council meeting at which council members interviewed two teams of consultants who are competing to work for the city as it moves from two years of consultant-assisted flood-recovery planning to the implementation of the plans.

On Thursday afternoon, Corbett said he does not believe the city needs to hire either team of consultants right now.

“What do I need them for?” asked the mayor, who said he was meeting with a staff member of Sen. Tom Harkin's at the time of the council session.

Corbett noted that the city already has project managers in place for major construction projects like the library and Event Center, and he said he thought the city was well-positioned with its Congressional delegation to push for Congressional funding for a flood-protection system and already had a good working relationship with the Army Corps of Engineers to build the system.

Corbett's absence at the Thursday meeting did not leave his questions unasked.

Council member Justin Shields wondered, too, why the city needed a team of consultants now since the work from two years of planning is now in place and ready to be implemented.

Anderson-Bogert Engineers and Surveyors Inc. of Cedar Rapids is heading up one team of consulting firms that is competing for the city contract, and Bill Bogert, president of the firm, said the city's own in-house staff isn't large enough to take on the implementation of a flood-protection plan, a neighborhood rebuilding plan and a parks master plan without some assistance. Bogert noted that a city contract with his team would make team members available to the city as the city decided it needed to use them.

Jeff Pomeranz, the city's new city manager who starts work Sept. 20, attended part of the Thursday meeting, and he asked Bogert and Christine Butterfield, the director of the city's Community Development Department, if the city could use other experts for specific matters even if it agreed to sign on with one of the two consulting teams competing for the city's work.

Butterfield and Bogert said the city could use the consulting team as much or as little as it chooses.

Butterfield noted that the current City Council budget includes up to $1 million to hire a consulting team to implement the city's flood-recovery plans and another $500,000 to implement the city's neighborhood planning process.

The Anderson-Bogert team of consultants includes Sasaki Associates Inc., Watertown, Mass., which has been the city's lead post-flood consultant for the last two years, Stanley Consultants of Muscatine and others.

The competing team is headed up by Veenstra & Kimm Inc. of West Des Moines. The team also includes HNTB Corp., with headquarters in Kansas City, Mo., Ament Inc. of Cedar Rapids and others.

The Anderson-Bogert-led team scored better than the Veenstra & Kimm-led team on an evaluation of proposals, staff interviews and reference checks, according to city documents.

The current timeline calls for the City Council to decide on Aug. 24 if it wants to hire a “preferred” consulting team to help the city implement its post-flood plans.