By Charlene Sims, info@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – The Linn County Commissioner’s meeting on Monday, Dec. 16, with Chad McCullough, the engineer with Kaw Valley the county’s on-call engineering service, turned from informative to contentious with threats of legal action.
That also included a question by the Kaw Valley engineer about a process to severe his company’s relationship with the county. If that happens, the county might be forced to return a significant portion of the more than $800,000 in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds that were distributed by the federal government during the midst of the COVID pandemic.
The county has until Dec. 31 to formally contract those funds, and Commission Chair Danny McCullough vowed to put in the work to make it happen by the ARPA deadline.
Kaw Valley’s Chad McCullough started out by telling the commissioners that bids had been received on the new transfer station project and gave the commissioners the recommendation of Randy Purdue the engineer in charge of that project.
Purdue had to be at another meeting and was unable to attend.
Chad McCullough said that while the engineering firm’s estimated bid amount from June 2024 was $1.63 million the lowest bid that came in was from Koehn Construction Services for nearly $1.77 million. He said that Purdue had checked out their references and also that he was impressed that they asked a lot of questions and looked at the plans and the specifications very thoroughly.
The other two companies, Nelson-Fowles and Crossland Construction, both had bids up around $2.05 million.
As commissioners were considering the bid, Public Works Director Shaun West reminded them that one thing not included in this bid was that the commissioners needed to determine what they wanted for the third party inspection of this project.
Commission Chair Danny McCullough asked if this was going to be a big enough project to have an onsite engineer.
Chad McCullough replied that Purdue had put together a cost estimate for having someone at the site every day during construction and that was about $91,000. He said that was not in the contractors bid and that it would be a person hired directly by the county.
Danny McCullough asked about different line items on the bid including the price of gravel and seeding the construction site. Danny McCullough wondered if some of these items could be taken out of the contract if the county did them.
Commissioner Jim Johnson asked if local contractors could do the concrete and things like that.
Danny McCullough asked if there were any locals or are these just general contractors.
Chad McCullough explained that this was a formal bid that Koehn submitted that has a bid bond that they had to get from their insurance company. He told the commissioners that you don’t get too many people who have a bonding company that will even allow them to bid on a $1.7 million dollar project.
Danny McCullough asked if the county could go with the lowest general contractor but that the county would have an understanding that we want to try to reach out to local contractors to perform the work.
Chad McCullough said that things that the county wanted to pull out could be done by addendum afterwards, like if there are certain things the county is going to take care of that line item and have it not be part of the contract. But, of course the low bidder would have to agree, he added.
Discussion was then held on the issue and Economic Development Director Chasity Ware told the commissioners that according to Carey Spoon at the Southeast Kansas Regional Planning Commission (SEKRPC) that the ARPA funds that would be used for part of this project had to be encumbered and dedicated to the project by Dec. 31, or the funds would have to be returned to the federal government. That would include documentation and commitment in writing by Dec 31. Ware said that the money had to be spent by Dec. 31, 2025.
At the end of the meeting, County Clerk David Lamb gave the commissioners updated information that Ware had brought to him saying that while the funds had to be committed by Dec. 31 this year, they did not have to be spent until Dec. 31, 2026.
In an email from Lamb, he wrote that the current balance in the ARPA fund is $812,614.90 however he said that he believed that some had already been committed to other projects.
Commissioner Jim Johnson asked where the rest of the funds for the project would come from if the county did this.
County Clerk David Lamb said he did not remember when the commissioners first talked about upgrading the transfer station if it a second source of funding was even discussed.
However, Lamb said that there was money in the contingency fund.
“I don’t know if we even talked about a back-up plan for the money if we don’t use it here,” said Commissioner Jim Johnson.
West said that other funds like special equipment or capital outlay could be used. He reminded them that some funds would be needed to purchase equipment for the tipping floor project.
Lamb told the commissioners that there was $393,000 in the equipment reserve for solid waste that would probably be used for the equipment. He also said that the money for the rest of project was in the contingency fund so that would not be an issue.
Danny McCullough questioned whether the construction company would still be interested if the county took over a few of the line items in the bid.
Chad McCullough said that the county would have to ask them.
West said that to find out the costs of the tipping floor expansion and what equipment was needed, the commissioners would need to go back to the original plan because it gave numbers on what that equipment would probably cost.
Johnson said, “It sure is higher than I thought it would be.”
Lamb told the commissioners, “But keep in mind if you decided to scrap this, I don’t know where you would find to spend that money by the end of the year you may be giving it back.”
Danny McCullough told West that they need the numbers so they can decided something next week.
West said he would get the plan back out to the commissioners this week for next week’s meeting.
“I’d just like to set down next week and go over every little detail and talk about it and figure out what we are going to do,” said Danny McCullough.
“We’ve got ourselves down to where, if this isn’t where we are going, we need to decide something,” said Johnson.
Danny McCullough said, “We don’t have a plan right now at all. We have some numbers for the tipping floor and that’s about it.”
West replied, “You’ve got numbers for the tipping floor and you’ve got the engineering plan that tells you what the equipment and what the savings, and what transfers we have.”
“We have no plan to say if we did this today, we can do this with it, or we can’t do this or we have to do this five years from now. I think that’s stuff that we have to know, right?” asked Danny McCullough. “I can’t be on board with spending $1.7 million not knowing what we are going to do next. I mean we’re talking $4 million dollars in the next three years in the landfill.
West told the commissioners that the county landfill cells will not fill up in the next three to five years.
“What you currently have there will give you enough time to draw capital if you have to to finish that project,” said West.
West explained that the cell expansion project doesn’t have to be completed by the end of the year like the tipping floor that is using ARPA funds.
“But I’m not on board with spending $1.7 million just because we have 15 days to do it,” said Danny McCullough. “I don’t think that’s a smart idea at all.”
Danny McCullough said they still need to come up with a plan if it takes a special meeting and they talk for over eight hours about it that’s what they need to do.
“I’m so lost in the project that it ain’t even funny,” said Danny McCullough. “Truthfully, we’re getting change orders for $4,000, and I thought the cell was already being expanded up. Does anybody know what we are doing? I don’t know what the plan is, I don’t really.”
West explained that the change order was for the cell expansion project and that project and the new transfer station project were completely separate projects.
“It’s way higher than I thought it would be,” said Johnson.
Danny McCullough asked what the anticipated change orders would cost. Chad McCullough said that the average change amount was around 10%.
“There’s a lot of unknowns in my opinion,” said Danny McCullough.
West said if they went back and looked at the original plan for the transfer station, it would give the numbers for the costs of equipment and other costs, but since it was done nearly a year ago, the numbers may have changed.
The study done by Pfefferkorn Engineering and Environmental entitled, Linn County Transfer Station Future Planning Study was presented to the commissioners in the spring of 2023 and according to the commission minutes in 2023 and 2024, discussions for plans and funding for the transfer station project were held during at least two meetings.
He asked West for a projection on how much the cell expansion project was going to cost. West said that the engineering firm had not made an estimate and since bidding had not started he did not know what the costs would be.
Johnson said, “We need to start searching to a direction to use the money if it is not used for this.”
“I can’t make a decision based on any of this,” said Danny McCullough. “There’s a lot of questions I don’t have a clue about.”
West said he would bring the numbers in next week so the commission could look them over.
Commissioner threatens legal action on 900 Road repair
The meeting with Chad McCullough then moved onto the 900 Road project. This project is the repair of a bridge that collapsed during the April storms at 900 and Wattles Road.
Chad McCullough discussed the project on 900 Road explaining the pipes were installed but when flowable fill was put in, one of the pipes floated up. He said that did not put the county out of the permit requirement. But, as more fill was added one of the pipes collapsed on one end.
Chad McCullough said his concern was if they tried to take the pipes out to reuse them that since they are now tied together with flowable fill that it will do more damage than good and end up having to buy two more pipes.
Chad McCullough said that they were talking about filling the rest of it up with concrete and essential end up letting the pipes be a form.
Danny McCullough asked what the total cost spent on the project was so far. Road Operations Manager Jesse Walton said it was $78,000.
“So we are already over budget, and we went with your plan that we hired you guys to do,” so now what are we looking at to finish out the project,” Danny McCullough told Chad McCullough.
Chad McCullough answered that his firm did not really do a plan, they just got the permits for the county to replace the culverts. He said that originally he had suggested doing a concrete box like the structure under Wattles Road just 100 yards up stream. However, he also reminded commissioners they had talked about bidding the project out, but the cost would probably be a couple of hundred thousand dollars.
“So you didn’t want to do that,” said Chad McCullough.
Danny McCullough asked where did the plan for adding all the concrete fill for the plan come from.
Chad McCullough replied, “You asked if we could just replace what’s there and I said we can’t replace it with two 10- foot tubes because we’ve got to be 12 inches below the flow line, and we’ve got to be at the same waterway opening that’s there.”
Danny McCullough asked, “Who made the determination to pour all of the concrete around it? What I am getting at is, it’s not our fault. I did not design this.”
“Nobody really designed it,” the engineer responded. “I just got the permits for it.”
“So then, who determined we fill with $40,000 worth of concrete around the tubes,” asked Danny McCullough.
The engineer replied, “Somebody had mentioned going in between them with flowable fill, and I said that’s fine you can do that if you want to.”
The engineer said that he thought the county had two options:
• Dig out the two pipes that are in there very carefully and hope that you don’t damage them enough that you can put them back in.
• Basically use them as forms and fill the entire thing up with concrete, which he said would not be cheap.
Chad McCullough said the county could just leave it and close the road.
Danny McCullough said he did not want to close a county road and that the county had turned to the engineering firm for a design.
Chad McCullough said this isn’t a design problem. This is an execution problem. I had never worked with your guys before. He added that it was initially at this meeting when filling it with flowable fill was discussed.
Chad McCullough told the commissioners that they probably should have contracted it out.
“I guess so but you guys are our on-call engineer, correct?” asked Danny McCullough.
“And you were good with us doing it to begin with?” asked Johnson.
“You guys wanted to do the cheap option of replacing with what was there and you acted like your guys could do it yourselves with your people,” the engineer replied. “I’ve not worked with your people before, so I don’t know what they are capable of.”
Danny McCullough said that it did not make sense to him that Kaw Valley stamped it and okayed the plan.
“We did not have to stamp anything,” Chad McCullough responded. “Anybody that works for the county could have put the permit application together and send them in. It didn’t have to be an engineer. There’s lots of counties that do their own permit applications.”
“We relied on you guys to do it,” said Danny McCullough. “Whose fault do you think it is?”
Chad McCullough said it was the product of doing this kind of bigger project by yourself rather than hiring a contractor.
“It’s not an engineered plan. I got you guys permits that was all my job was,” said Chad McCullough.
Chad McCullough then walked away from the microphone and said to West that the firm’s contract allows either party to terminate the contract at any time.
“As far as the on-call engineering?” asked West.
Chad McCullough said he would submit it to West on Tuesday.
“There’s nothing I can do for you,” said Chad McCullough.
Danny McCullough said, “I guess we’ll have to get lawyers involved and all that.”
“I told you to build a box culvert,” said Chad McCullough. “You guys decided that this is what you wanted to do.”
“I don’t think that there is enough help for you all. Every time I’m here, somebody’s here trying to talk to you about doing something stupid,” said Chad McCullough.
“Well, you agreed to our stupidness," said Danny McCullough. “You okayed it and gave it to the state of Kansas, so I feel like your company’s responsible for this and you guys should help us,”
“I’m ignorant as to how you pull a permit with the state and how you don’t have to present a plan to them,” Danny McCullough added. “I think you can just deal with our lawyer then.”
Danny McCullough asked West if he felt like he and his crew were to blame or the engineer.
West said that, since this sounded like this was going to court, he did not feel that he should give an opinion but would supply documents about the project.
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