RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AGENCY - B. BARNES

Approve Amendment No. 1 to the contract with EMC Planning Group, Inc. for Planning & Environmental Services, 2035 General Plan Update in the additional amount of $10,918.96, or other action as may be determined appropriate by the Board of Supervisors. This item was held over to the April 12, 2016 BOS Meeting with staff being directed to ask the consultant for additional, detailed billing information.

SBC FILE NUMBER: 790

In late 2013, the County executed a contract with EMC to update the General Plan and prepare CEQA documents in the amount of $200,000 with a 10% contingency at the discretion of the planning director, for a total of $220,000. To date, EMC has been paid $207,018.96 (see attached summary).

The proposal and resulting contract (attached) included limitations on work effort, framed as assumptions. For example, it was assumed that General Plan graphics prepared by the previous consultant would be available to EMC. (Some graphics had to be recreated.) In other specific cases, the Board asked for additional work (e.g., Quality of Life policies) or the work plan evolved (e.g., use of outside counsel to review and respond to comments). These changes resulted in EMC proceeding in good faith, on both documented verbal and written authorization, with out of scope work in a total amount of $13,900.00. In addition, EMC is asserting that they were directed to perform another $15,000.00 worth of work, but no clear written or verbal agreements for some of these work items have been found. Specifically, these items are:

·         General Plan graphics ($1,200.00 requested): On March 4^th, 2014, the Board discussed mapping issues relating to the General Plan. The basic issue under discussion was the scale and readability of the maps that had been prepared by the prior consultant.

·         Quality of Life policies ($500.00 requested): EMC states that they were authorized through discussion at a public session in May of 2014 to prepare “quality of life” policies for the General Plan. Staff has not been able to confirm this through Board meeting tapes.

·         AMBAG model & graphics ($4,500.00 requested): In late 2013, the General Plan update was being prepared based on the AMBAG regional travel forecast model in use at that time, but it was known that an updated model was being developed. Email from November 12, 2013 indicates that EMC was directed to use the existing AMBAG model rather than wait for the new model. Early in 2014, AMBAG apparently indicated that the new model  would be released “shortly”. It was, in fact, not available for use until late summer or fall of that year. However, EMC asserts that they were asked to wait to finalize environmental work based on the model until the new version was in place, resulting in $4,500 of additional effort. Staff has not been able to reconstruct the timeline relating to this request.

·         Responses to special counsel comments ($8,800.00 requested): The EMC contract specifies that the consultant would respond to one compiled set of comments on the General Plan EIR. After the draft EIR was prepared, a decision was made to bring on special counsel to provide additional support in reviewing the document. That review created a situation where comments and responses became more of a “conversation” than a single set of compiled comments. Mr. Groves has stated that he was authorized during a conference call with EMC, County staff, and special counsel, held from 1:30 to 3:00 PM on February 6, 2015 to proceed with “Set 3” (out of contract) work in responding to EIR comments from special counsel. He further stated that he “should worry about getting the work done and deal with the contract later.”

Under the contingency clause of the contract, the Planning Director was able to authorize up to $20,000 of the agreed work, leaving a balance of $10,918.96.  EMC was aware that a contract amendment beyond the $220,000 would have to be presented to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

Based on this amount, the RMA is asking that a contract amendment of $10,918.96 be authorized to cover the work which was discussed with staff.

Staff respectfully recommends that the Board of Supervisors:

1)  Approve Amendment No. 1 to the contract with EMC Planning Group, Inc. for the General Plan Update and EIR in the amount of $10,918.96; and authorize the Chair to sign the amended contract, or other action as may be determined appropriate by the Board of Supervisors.