Public Works and Utilities Committee Meeting Mon, May 19, 2025 ยท Public Works and Utilities Committee https://santafeminutes.space/meeting/77 == Executive Summary == The Public Works and Utilities Committee received a comprehensive update on the Nichols Dam Outlet Works Rehabilitation Project, which is approximately 75% complete and on track for substantial completion by October. The project, costing $19.2 million, involves significant dam safety and operational improvements, funded by state grants and loans. The committee also discussed the upcoming Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) process for 2025, emphasizing its importance for securing legislative grants and capital planning, with plans for early public outreach. Further discussions included the benefits of on-call contractor contracts for expediting work and maintaining competitive pricing. Concerns were raised about the deteriorating condition of Airport Road, with a full rehabilitation planned for next year, and a suggestion to reduce the speed limit as an interim measure. Director Wheeler announced her upcoming retirement in January, expressing gratitude for her time with the department. == Key Decisions == - Approved the agenda unanimously. - Approved the consent agenda unanimously, with item 7D removed. - Approved an unspecified item, likely related to on-call contracts, with a 4-0 roll call vote. == Motions & Votes == - Motion to approve the agenda โ€” Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve the consent agenda, with item 7D removed โ€” Passed unanimously. - Motion to approve an unspecified item (likely related to on-call contracts) โ€” Passed 4-0 (Councilor Castro, Michael Garcia, Lee Garcia, and Chair Chavez voting yes). == Public Comment == No public comments were made during the meeting. However, the committee discussed plans for public comment opportunities regarding the Infrastructure Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) process, with suggestions for broader marketing and early communication. == Topics == - Nichols Dam Rehabilitation - Airport Road Condition - On-Call Contracts - Integrated Capital Improvement Plan (ICIP) - Director Wheeler's Retirement - Living River Water == Full Transcript == All right. Can you let me know when we're live, please? We are live. Thank you. All right. I call to order the Public Works and Utilities Committee meeting. It is May 19th, 2025, and it is 5:01. Could I get roll call, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Romero Worth, excused. Councilor Castro, present. Councilor Michael Garcia, present. Councilor Lee Garcia, excused. And Chair Chavez, here. You have a certainly. Garcia may be able to get here at a later time, but there was a lot going on at work. Okay. All right. Moving on to approval of the agenda. Do I have any changes from staff? No changes from staff, Madam Chair. All right. Could I get a motion, please? Move to approve. Second. I have a motion and I have a second. All those in favor signify by saying, "Aye." Aye. Any opposed? See none. Motion passes. Approval of consent. I believe only one item was removed, and let me try to get to it unless you have that in front of you. 7D. 7, I believe, Madam Chair. Thank you, ma'am. And is there any other items that any members would like to hear today? All right. Could I get a motion, please, to approve as amended? Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote? Certainly, Madam Chair. Let's see. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Castro, yes. Chair Chavez, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next would be public comment. Do we have anyone in chambers today that would like to come speak for two minutes? All right. I don't see anyone here today. Presentations. And we have two presentations. We will be starting with an update on the Nichols Dam Outlet Works Rehabilitation Project. Taylor Jurgens, engineer, is here to do this overview for us. Okay. Can you hear me all right? Yes, I can. Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I'm Taylor Jurgens. I'm an engineer with the Water Division, one of the project managers on this project. And tonight, I will just be presenting to you a status update on our Nichols Dam Outlet Rehab Project. First, I'll start with just a quick overview of the project to refresh your memories. These improvements are really grouped into two main categories: there's the dam safety piece and then the non-dam safety piece. The dam safety component, the main goal of that, is to address a couple potential failure modes that were identified with the dam as part of an assessment that was done, I think, back in 2018. So those improvements include lining the existing outlet conduit with a new HDPE liner and then grouting it in place, as well as putting a new sand filter on the downstream toe of the dam to help manage the water seepage through the dam itself. The non-dam safety portion of the work is focused more on operational improvements, water quality improvements, and then improving our accounting of the water that's leaving Nichols. Those improvements include some modifications to our inclined intake structure, adding a couple new valve vaults, one at the Nichols Dam and one at the treatment plant, and then adding a new BSA building at the dam and a new aeration system within the reservoir itself that'll help with water quality in the reservoir. This project was originally bid back in late spring/summer of 2023. It was awarded to CF Padilla, and notice to proceed was issued to them back in October of '23. So currently, we're about 75% done with the project. Actual construction began in spring of 2024, just based on the runoff season. We had to wait till that kind of that runoff season from the previous winter ended before we could get in and do a lot of this work. Right now, we're anticipating the dam safety portion of completion to be done. The slide says June, but based on some of the latest information we've got, that's probably shifting into July a little bit due to some lead time issues with some of the remaining materials that we've got. And then we're anticipating an overall substantial completion on the project this fall, looking like October. This just gives you a quick snapshot of the financials for the project. When it was first bid out, the low bid came in just under $17 million. Since that point, we've had two amendments that total about $2.3 million, which brings our current contract amount to $19.2 million. And you can see there the original engineer's estimate that was done in 2022 was about $18.6 million. And so by the time you account for some inflation on that original engineer's estimate, it puts us right about in line with where we're at now. And we've added some work that wasn't originally accounted for in that estimate, too. So far, we've billed, I think it's now a little over $14 million to date. We received another invoice since this slide was put together, which is about 72% billed. It's also worth noting, we have received an award of $5.5 million from the Water Trust Board. That's a 60% grant, 40% loan component. So that's about $3.3 million grant funding, the other being a loan. And we've also been approved for a Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan for basically everything that's left on the contract that we don't contribute that Water Trust Board funding to. This is just a quick look at the work that we've completed on the project to date, some of the more key milestones anyway. They've got both of the valve vaults built, the vault at the Nichols Dam and the vault at the treatment plant. They successfully slip-lined the existing conduit and grouted that in place. They got the piping demolished in the existing intake structure and installed the new knife gate valves. There's a total of three knife gate valves that have been installed that will control the flow of water into this intake structure, ultimately out of the reservoir. And then all throughout this construction process, we continue to maintain flows to the river, to our treatment plant, and to the acequias throughout. And that's primarily been through bypass pumping around the reservoir as they've worked within the reservoir. And I haven't been pointing it out, but on the right there, you'll see that's the upstream end of the outlet conduit that was lined. That smaller pipe in the middle is what they basically pulled through the original conduit. Some of the main work remaining on the project is this downstream filter diaphragm and the dam embankment installation. That work's underway, but they aren't quite finished with that yet. There's a small piece of the outlet conduit piping left to finish, and that'll connect to a new raw water line that was installed a few years ago, basically in preparation for this project. So there'll be a new line running to the treatment plant. They have some piping to install within this new Nichols valve vault and then the new aeration system as well. And then throughout all that, there's the electrical installation and the STA control piece of this that'll get done as well. Now for the more interesting part, which is the construction photos that we've taken along the way throughout the project. So this is standing on the crest of the dam looking at the reservoir after it's been drained. And that kind of semicircle shape there is the coffer dam that they've built to basically keep the water off the construction site, and that's what they've been pumping around to the downstream side of the dam. This was sort of a very interesting stage of the project where we basically drained all the water out of the reservoir that we could through our existing valves, and there's what we call a stop log at the bottom of the reservoir. It's kind of like a drain plug of the reservoir. And there's water between the lowest valve and that stop log that we can't drain out by gravity. And so we thought there was going to be this big, you know, release of the water once we pulled this stop log, but it had been locked in place for so long that it didn't work the way we anticipated. And so they ended up having to pump down the rest of that pool, get some guys down there to work on that stop log, and then pulled it out. So on the left, you can kind of still see the water pool in there. On the right is basically what it looks like after all that water drained out of the reservoir. This is a couple pictures of the vault at the treatment plant. On the left, they're forming up the rebar for the walls. And then on the right is after it's been done and buried. This was one of the more interesting portions of the project when they were doing the actual the planning of the conduit. And on the left-hand side there, you can see that black pipe is what they basically pulled through the existing conduit with excavators, one on the downstream and one on the upstream end, sliding it up through that existing conduit. And those white rings you kind of see spaced every so often, those are casing spacers. The pipe kind of rides on through the conduit. It keeps it centered where we want it to, and it gives the pipe something to ride on that isn't going to damage the pipe as it gets pulled through the conduit. And then on the right, that's just more of piping being pulled through. You can kind of see where we've actually excavated a little bit into the dam itself to make that connection. And then this is the Nichols valve vault that's on the downstream side of the dam. And here we're going to have a series of outfalls to the river. Each one of them is going to be metered so that we can track who's getting what water, have a metered accounting of, you know, who we're sending water to out of the reservoir. This is just a couple more photos of that same vault further along construction. This is the VSA building that's on the downstream side of the dam. And this would basically house the aeration equipment that feeds air to our new aeration system, as well as some hydraulic equipment to operate the valves. And that's all I've got. So I'm happy to answer any questions that anybody has. Thank you for sharing that. Are there any questions from the committee? I'm sorry, Councilor Castro. So I do have a couple questions about the Living River water, and I think this might actually be more for Director Roach, but anyone is welcome to answer. In some previous presentations, and I'm trying to find that, you refer to Two-Mile Pond. Is that part of the Living River water, and is that why we're able to sort of use that, or are we still going to use this bypass? Madam Chair, Councilor Castro, I'd be happy to just clarify a little bit. I think as you probably know, Nichols releases to the river, and then it flows down, and the water flows around Two-Mile Pond, but there's an indirect groundwater connection that keeps Two-Mile Pond wet. The decision of whether to send water around the pond or through the pond is a policy decision that I think we're working forward on the potential idea of sending all the water through the Two-Mile Pond complex. But that is an idea that we recommend be vetted through the River Commission, which is the advisory committee that sort of would recommend on that. And the Living River flows, the volume of the flows through the whole year are specified very specifically in code depending on the snowpack on April 1st. But the timing of those flows, and now I think the discretion on which way those flows go, through the Two-Mile Pond or around the Two-Mile Pond, I think lies with the River Commission. Thank you so much. I appreciate that, Director. And I just want to commend you for all the work. It's been amazing and a huge project. So thank you so much for your support. No further questions. Thank you. Yeah, and I want to echo that. I really enjoyed that you shared those pictures on the presentation. It just shows the magnitude of the work that's involved in this, and it just puts what our money is paying for, which is this is heavy, heavy work. A lot goes into it. So, thank you for giving us that insight and allowing us to share that with the public. And I think that's it. Mr. Jurgens: Thank you. Yes, sir. And Madam Chair, if I could make one other comment. It's amazing to see the construction at this moment with the reservoir empty, and it's an opportunity that we probably will not have again. It's possible that we won't have that opportunity again in our lifetimes. And so I would highly recommend, and we tried to set up a meeting and a tour to make it part of this committee meeting, but I really would encourage all of you to reach out, and we'll take you up on your own or in pairs to see this remarkable engineering structure at a moment where you can really see everything about it. In the next couple of months, the reservoir will fill up, and it'll be harder to see. Well, I imagine I know with Councilor Rivera, we had our field trips, and so we did. We left our agenda as light as possible, and we did what we needed to do, the business we needed to do, and then we jumped into... I'm looking around, so maybe I could work with you guys to make that happen in the next few meetings or so. I don't know if we could... These are just about long enough that if we were here for 15 minutes, you could head up there. It only takes a round trip, half an hour. One and a half hours. Oh, if the committee would be okay with it, maybe we can, you guys can help me organize that. I think it was easier. There was a space that we utilized, didn't we? Up there. I'm trying to remember, wasn't it? Oh. Oh, yes. And then we had our meeting there, and then we did the tour. Okay. Yes, understood. We'll make that happen. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Jurgens. Thank you. Next is ICIP process update, and that's you, Director Willer. I will turn it over to you. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Surprisingly enough, we just barely got notice of our 2025 legislative session appropriations, and it's time to get ready for the next session already. It's almost a continuous cycle. So I wanted to give the committee a briefing on the process, give you an opportunity to ask any questions. So this process is actually a significant capital planning exercise for the city, and we do it every single year because the state of New Mexico actually requires it to be eligible for legislative grants. But it's a bigger exercise because this is the annually adopted capital plan of the city. And so there are projects that each department goes through an exercise of really thinking about what capital projects are on the list. Are they still relevant? Are they still needed? Do they likely have funding all the way to the finish line? Right? Some of the legislative money usually provides some money. Then we usually get some state or federal grants for some money, and the city provides some money. Is there a roadmap like that for each of the projects? They ask themselves, are there any other projects that have arisen to our attention through customer complaints or councilor advocacy or just age of a facility or breakdowns that are occurring? So the first thing that happens in the update of the ICIP is each department does a capital planning exercise to really take a look at what the needs are. This is a five-year horizon plan. Once that's done, they've decided what projects will be updated, what projects might be considered for removal because, say, they're complete or say they're not needed as much as other things are, or say the funding sources have dried up that they thought might be there. And then each project, each line on your ICIP, that's the packet that I put in there, was last year's ICIP. It's a project, and each project manager for each of these items goes in, and they update all the funding received, how much, what's their progress, what's their status of the project right now, what's their forecast for needing money over the next five years, and that's what you see in each of the columns is the amount they need to encumber. You guys are old pros at this, so I'm kind of telling you things you've already heard, but just to refresh it because we'll be introducing the resolution soon. And one of the things I wanted to point out that's really interesting on this table is the last, second to the last two columns, total project cost and amount not yet funded. So that shows you, with the difference between those two numbers, is the cash on hand already that we've secured either from legislative grants or other grants or the city itself has funded. And so that's actually a really good measure to see how far are we into this project. You know, if you have $150,000 on a $10 million project, you're not really very far into it. You probably haven't even started it. But if you're $5 million into a $10 million project, you're probably making some headway and taken on design for sure. So each of the project managers goes into each of the worksheets, fills those out. There's a quality control check on that, and then that's submitted into the DFA website. They give us this format, which we then attach to a resolution. We do try in this iteration of the ICIP to really get it in the right order where the top five are really the top five because if you remember, we'll have one more run at this when we do our legislative priorities resolution at the end of the year, but that comes really tight against the session actually starting, and the legislators have actually already seen this list in the form that we submitted it earlier. So, it behooves us to have our top five pretty well sorted out by the end of this process, although we can amend it in that legislative priorities resolution. So in this year, we are targeting introduction of the ICIP resolution on June 3rd. The plan is to invite public comment during petitions from the floor. Since it's a resolution, it doesn't have a public comment phase, but we'll invite petitions from the floor. When it comes to public works, that's another opportunity for public comment. Last year, we did the same two things, and about three people commented on the ICIP. And then we're targeting, oh, I'm sorry, we're targeting introduction on June 11th. June 11th is the introduction and then submitting to DFA no later than July 1st. So July 11th. So it'll go through that process. And I think with that, I can just see if you have any questions. Thank you, Director. Are there questions from the committee? Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Willer, are you going to connect with the councilors before it gets introduced? That way, it prevents any potential amendments, etc. Thank you so much for asking that, Councilor Garcia. Madam Chair, I did want to mention that if you have any projects that have arisen in your field that aren't on this list, then it would be great that the department directors are the perfect people to speak to about that. They'll know what their capital plan is, be able to talk to you about that if it's already been included, if they're already planning to include it. But certainly, suggestions from you at this time is a great time. And yes, I usually do, as soon as I have this draft put together, I send out an email that says, "If anybody would like to meet, here's our draft." And I will definitely do that again, Councilor Garcia. Perfect. That's all I need. Thank you, Councilor Michael Garcia. Now, Councilor Lee Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Director Wheeler, on what, so how, how do we, I guess, know what is potentially going to be on this year's current ICIP so we can kind of get a feeling of what's being asked for, what you're thinking, and what maybe we may be looking for in our districts? Thank you so much for that question. I think the list as it is is a really good indicator of what you'll see, although some things will come off and some things will come on. So I expect, let's see, I've given folks a deadline, and when I will have a draft, let's see, by June 3rd, I'll have the new updated list that I can email out right around there to get, and then you can look and see if anything, you know, raises questions for you or if something's missing. Okay, thank you. And thank you for getting that to us quickly. Councilor, I was wondering, thank you. Director, you did mention only three people came to the public comment last year. What is our outreach plan? How are we letting folks know that they can come give public comment? I think we did some Facebook outreach and a press release about the opportunity to make public comment on the city's capital plan. It happens right around the same time the county is doing it too. So it's sort of a topic on the street. I would suggest maybe we put it in the paper as well or do some specific marketing this year, but no further questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Thank you, Director, for your work. Around what time or do you remember the timeline of us alerting the community that they could come in and make a comment? Was it before it was posted? It was definitely before it was posted last time. Okay. You know what I could do? We could even do, you know, an early outreach now that last year we didn't have this timeline quite as well mapped out. We could do early outreach with last year's plan and say this will be updated. You'll have an opportunity to make really petitions from the floor at any time between now and then. Right. Yeah. Now that we have public comment in public works and utilities, I think that would be good to include. And if you, you know, will work with the city clerk for that, could you include me on that communication just so that I could alert other members and they could share it on their social media? That's often a good way for us to communicate, communicate as many of our constituents follow us there. So I could get that out once it's drafted. Thank you so much. I'll do that. Thank you so much. Okay. Okay, I think we are to the items that were pulled off consent, which was 7D, and I had it in front of me, and now I lost it. There it is. Request for approval of amendment number one to construction contract item number 23-0224 with the GME General Building LLC to extend the term through May 30th, 2026, update the price list, and allow contract extensions for up to 10 years. And we have Romela here. I'm here for this, Madam Chair. Okay. I love seeing Romela, though. She's so great. I love seeing you too. So, Director, then I will turn it over to... Well, actually, I believe you pulled it, Councilor Castro, so I don't know. I'll let you take the lead on it. No worries. So, we have been having a lot of really robust conversations about our contractors, in particular around streets. And so I wanted to give Director the opportunity to explain a little bit of the contract we're looking at now versus the project-based contracts that we have in other parts of the city and a little bit about some of the difficulties or complexities around taking these city contracts for these contractors. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, Councilor Castro. One thing I should say right off the bat is this contract is not with the contractor that's doing Guadalupe. So GME Mulion is the one, and there's a separate contractor called GME Builders General Contractor. So this is a different company that is the contract that's on the agenda tonight, but GME Mulion actually has a contract just like it that was approved at the last Public Works Committee meeting for an extension. We established these on-call contracts so that we can respond. We sort of have built-in partners for our capital program, and it's really important. We established this starting, gosh, almost 10 years ago now, and these built-in partners are always there for us. If we have emergency work, they're already under contract and procured. If we have big projects coming up, we can have multiple vendors bid, give us quotes on it, without having to go through the whole ITB process, which can take up to a year. It really slows our projects down to have to go out to bid every time. So, these contracts allow us to get work done much more quickly, but still have competitive pricing because we are asking multiple ones with on-call contractor contracts to give us quotes. So, they compete against each other that way. It also gives us a really good, solid idea of what the pricing will be because they have price lists on them. And so our vendors, when they're doing cost estimates for our projects based on design, they use those price lists. Just a clarifying question, what happens if we don't use the entire fund of the contract? Does that go back into our general fund? Actually, this contract doesn't cause any funds to be encumbered. It's an on-call contract, and so funds are only encumbered when we issue a purchase order. So what happens is that remaining not-to-exceed balance is just never spent and never encumbered. Perfect. Thank you so much. No further questions. Thank you. Any other questions, discussion? If not, can I have a motion? Move to approve. Second. I have a motion. I have a second. Could I get a roll call vote, please? Certainly, Madam Chair. Councilor Castro, yes. Councilor Michael Garcia, yes. Councilor Lee Garcia, yes. Chair Chavez, yes. Motion passes. Next is matters from staff, so I turn it back to you. Okay. Director Roach, it's your turn. Unfortunately, no matters from staff from my end. It's been a big day, but I think I should let this committee know. It's a little bit of early notice, but I have let the Mayor and the City Manager know that I will be retiring in January. So, yeah, we're taking a look at how to, everybody's trained up. You have a great Public Works team that is doing incredible work. They're just a machine, actually. And I think with the knowledge that the governing body has about where investments are needed, that it's just set up for success in the long run. So thank you so much for the opportunity to serve. I'm not leaving for a little while, but it's been a real honor, and I've really appreciated it. Congratulations. Retirement is exciting. It is. You deserve a break. Yeah. So, congrats. Matters from the committee. Any matters? Yes, Councilor Michael Garcia. Just congratulations, Director Wheeler. Enjoy retirement and the next adventures. Matters from the Chair. I just wanted to bring up Airport Road because I'm not in District 3, but I know a lot of individuals from, that's where my family is, friends. I worked at, I led a school there. I can't even imagine what Councilor Lee Garcia and Councilor Faulkner are hearing about, but I am starting to get a lot of communication about the condition of Airport Road. And I don't know if we could get another update on roads or something, but it's to the point where a lot of constituents are threatening to do complaints based on car damage. And so, I drive that road a lot. It is rough. My car is not damaged, but there are some significant obstacles on Airport Road to get through right now. So, I think it would be nice, especially because three of us who are taking those calls pretty consistently are on this, well, Councilor Wagner is not, the two of us are. If we could get an update just on roads, and specifically the condition of Airport, would be good. Madam Chair, there's no action that will happen on Airport Road until next year. It's one of the bond-funded projects. So, what you'll be seeing soon is the bond ordinance, but maybe I could say that, you know, it's sort of maybe disconcerting that people think the road might be falling apart, but it actually isn't. What it is, is that there was a DOT put a little top layer on there before it was transferred to the city, and it's called OFC, and that is crumbling off. So it's not a structural loss of the road. I was thinking maybe since the keep's coming up, maybe we should just reduce the speed. Maybe we'd have to pass a resolution to reduce the speed, but we could try to do that, which is kind of a big deal. Engineers don't recommend reducing speeds below design limits, but we'll have to look at something. There's nothing we can do until we get the full rehab going. And this team is full speed ahead on that. They'll be ahead of the curve. They're already getting quotes and striping plans. I think an update on that would be good because even though, like, structurally it's sound, it's not pleasant. It's not pleasant, and it's not a good quality road. Like, it just isn't, you know. So the fact that the layer is crumbling is having impact on constituent commute. And so I want to acknowledge it as a true concern because it's a true concern. And I think if we could get an update or even give them some insight on what process we're following and what that timeline looks like, it would just help so that they can see some light at the end of the tunnel because we're going to, that means we're going to go through another winter. So, I could just imagine what that road's going to look like after that. So if we could maybe get a presentation or something, that would be helpful, I think. I don't know if you want to comment, Councilor Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bringing that up. And yes, we, you know, we had discussion, especially over finance hearings. We were talking about our district and Airport Road and streets and things of that nature. And so, yes, it is something that we are hearing from constituents quite often. I drive the road multiple times a day, and there are sections of it that are pretty rough to drive through. And so, I know there's been some remediation that's been tried by throwing some hot mix in certain areas. But, yeah, I concur with Councilor Chavez that as long as we can get some sort of a plan that we can tell the community what we're doing because I think when we've had our conversations, you said August of '26. That's quite a long ways to do that. That's where the last, right. So, possibly April of '26. So, if my request would be to try to move it up as close to the time that we can redo it as possible because it is pretty bad. I did want to say that I have thought about the potential action of reducing the speed on Airport Road. I do drive Airport Road often, and it's 45, 40, and some, I think 45 as we get closer towards midway point. And the road is actually pretty narrow compared to Rodeo Road or, yeah, Rodeo Road right by the rodeo grounds. And that's 35. And so I see the traffic on Airport Road being considerably more and congested. So, thank you. Yeah, Councilor Garcia, maybe we could look into that together moving forward to see what else we can do in the meantime. But, and thank you so much for the information, Director Wheeler. I appreciate it. And the other matter is just our next meeting is June 2nd, 2025. And with that, we're adjourned. Thank you.