Seawall Update
Yes the contract was signed…..
An issue that came up was bonding, the bonding company did not want to bond out the entire project, they wanted to split it up in parts. The CDD lawyers found no problem with this and came up with a way to Bond the construction basically based on the phasing of the project. The Project was already divided into 4 phases
Phase 1 Emergency and Section1 A Lots
Phase 2 Section 1B lots
Phase 3 Section 2
Phase 4 the North Wall Pocket 101
The delay we are experiencing is during learning this Bonding issue the contractor attorney asked for clarifications and other contractual wording to have some changes. Since the signed contract would have to be changed anyway to 4 Phased contracts, it is my belief their attorney took that as an opportunity to modify certain language.
The contractor showed up to the last CDD meeting to address the board; he informed us that some of the delays were caused by an illness that put him on the hospital but was now back and wanted to get on with the project. He indeed told us that his attorney recommended 14 points to go over on the contract.
The Board discussed the status of the seawall with the contractor, reminded him that he had a signed contract for the entire project, we acknowledged we knew of the bond issue and that is was worked out for both parties but we needed to move forward. The Board told the contractor to get the 14 points in ASAP to our CDD lawyers.
The District Engineer re-iterated their confidence in Dock Solutions for the Seawall replacement.
To protect the District, (Residents) and follow the law; The Board also directed District Counsel to send a notice to the contractor with a 7-day deadline for providing comments on the current contract. If there is not a contract signed by the August meeting, Counsel’s recommendation will be for the Board to find a new vendor for the seawall reconstruction.
The current status is:
District Counsel did send notice to Dock Solutions and will provide updates as necessary to all Board members.
The District did receive notice of the issues from Dock Solutions.
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Personal Notes:
I can only speak for myself; I did lay into Dock Solutions at the meeting, I am sure no one on the Board is happy with these delays, if you go listen to the audio you will hear the Supervisors were strong in their messaging to the contractor to get his house in order.
When Dock Solutions left the meeting; I personally spoke with him 1 on 1, with a resident witness present, told him to get his ducks in a row, work out the issues with the attorneys expeditiously, and strongly reminded him that if he did not come through that he would, (IMO), definitely be out by the next meeting.
To all residents:
Government contracting constantly comes up with red tape, the bonding issue caused much of this, it appears the bond would be an issue no matter what contractor did the job.
The entire district is working hard to getting this resolved, but we have to let this play out as the law requires us to do. Anything other than what is written here, (unless another supervisor has a little more knowledge and detail), would just be conjecture and will not help the situation.
Please allow the District to get through this before we start any rumors that may cause us more fires to put out trying to resolve the actual issues at hand.