City staff investigation into several sewer project proposals has led one engineering firm to drop out of projects.

Faithful+Gould, originally contracted Sept. 29 to complete about $65,000 of work on the sewer project, will no longer complete the work and will instead consider submitting qualifications for future work, it was announced Tuesday night during the City Council’s regular meeting. Problems arose when proposals started arriving that showed a $35,000 difference in estimated work than what was originally contracted.

Interim City Manager Charlie Cassens decided last week the issue needed City Council attention and consulted with Interim Public Works Director Mark Clark.

“We did this as an effort to clear out some of the controversy that essentially led to the meeting where Richard Kaffenberger was dismissed,” Cassens said. “ It became apparent that Faithful+Gould’s offers to do items of work was changing over time.”

The council had originally approved the contract for Faithful+Gould for a full system model audit, Sweetwater/Hagen Pump Station concept review and design review after former City Manager Richard Kaffenberger split the sewer project costs between the company and AMEC. Cassens said following the Sept. 29 meeting, Faithful+Gould came back and changed their projections a few times and finally indicated the work could not be done for the contract allotted.

“We then received another letter from Faithful+Gould that indicated they were interested in including oversight into the (request for qualifications) process and would participate in that way. It was them saying ‘Never mind about all the stuff we gave you before.’ Basically they wanted a chance to start over with other bidders.”

Cassens said he could not speculate as to the reasons for the constant proposal changes.

“I don’t want to accuse anybody of anything or suggest any wrongdoing. I just wanted to clear the air,” he said. “There was a whirlwind of information going on swirling around the city manager’s involvement and ... suggestions that there were design flaws and problems ... so we wanted to look back in time and figure it out.”

The modeling audit had no changes but on Oct. 2, Faithful+Gould submitted a proposal for the Sweetwater/Hagen concept review that saw a jump in estimates.

“They came back and said the cost would be $23,540,” Clark said. “They were originally given about $5,000 for that.”

Clark said the design plan review also had a significant change.

“A further submittal on Oct. 12 for the … design plan review was about $47,000 which was originally indicated at $18,000,” he said. “That’s what caused it to be an issue.”

City Council indicated Tuesday that engineering and construction firm PBS&J would take over the concept and design review for “significantly less” than Faithful+Gould’s proposals. PBS&J was previously approved to do design and expansion work through a bid process, Clark said.

“Still issues to be addressed with some design and modeling information,” Clark said. “Staff is confident that it will be worked out and these things don’t have impact on projects we’re doing now.”

Mayor Mark Nexsen said he felt the design review would be important to the city.

“I’m still a strong believer … only because questions have been raised, and I think they need an answer,” Nexsen said. “So to me it’s money well spent to dispel the issues that might be out there.”

City staff also released a proposed schedule for bid awards and construction dates for the sewer project. The plans call for the Trotwood area to be the last section, with bids awarded on March 23, 2010 and construction to take place from April 2010 to 2011.

You may contact the reporter at nbruttell@havasunews.com.