Mayor’s firm in line for FD design project
Council to start budget workBy BILL SHEA, Messenger staff writer
The engineering firm led by Mayor Terry Lutz may be hired by the Fort Dodge City Council Monday to design an overhaul of Wraywood Drive.
The council will meet at 6 p.m. Monday in the Municipal Building, 819 First Ave. S.
Lutz is the president of McClure Engineering Co. in Fort Dodge. Critics claimed he had a conflict of interest when the firm received a handful of other contracts after he took office in January 2006.
Last summer, the staff of state Auditor David Vaudt reported that the council failed to use proper bidding procedures when it awarded contracts to McClure and MER Engineering Inc., while its president, Eldon Rossow, was the acting city engineer.
To avoid that scenario on the Wraywood Drive project, city officials asked engineering firms to submit their qualifications and a price for doing the work.
In a memo to the elected officials, City Engineer Chad Schaeffer wrote that the engineering firms were evaluated on their experience with similar projects, experience working with federal funding, previous experience with the city, their proposed schedule for doing the work and their fees. Schaeffer wrote that a points system was devised in which 100 points was the top score a firm could receive.
According to Schaeffer, McClure was tied for the highest number of points (89) and offered the lowest fee ($50,850).
The other bidders for the job were MER Engineering (89 points and a $58,000 fee) and Kuehl & Payer Ltd., of Storm Lake (65 points and a $99,345 fee).
Lutz did not seek re-election and his term of office concludes at the end of this year.
The Wraywood Drive project will convert what was once a rural road into a city street complete with storm sewers. The work, including engineering, is expected to cost about $1 million. The federal government will pay $695,000 of that cost.
Construction could begin in July.
That project is not the only thing on the council's agenda Monday.
Council members will also consider approving a change to the city's zoning map to reflect the creation of new corridor overlay districts along Fifth Avenue South and Kenyon Road.
They will also begin planning the 2010-2011 city budget. City Manager David Fierke plans to give the elected officials an overview of municipal finances.
The next fiscal year begins July 1, 2010, but state law requires the budget to be finished in March.
The city's current budget totals about $63 million.
Contact Bill Shea at (515) 573-2141 or bshea@messengernews.net
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TAXEDENOUGH
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12-07-09 12:57 PM
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Typical politics - hire people in to jobs and help certain people get elected so you can fleece the taxpayers without question!
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BornInFD
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12-06-09 10:39 PM
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that is it, Mayor Terry Lutz should have made a decision prior to running for the mayor's office - is the small sum I will collect as mayor worth the amount of money my firm may lose as a conflict of interest. I guess it is an easy answer if the firm still made money and he was still paid as mayor. This stinks to high heaven, he knows it, and the current city engineer with his Grading system should be fired. Why is it rules/laws really have no bearing, especially when large sums of money area at stake? Rhetorical, I already know the answer
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BlueJay82
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12-06-09 9:50 PM
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After doing 10 mins of searching the Iowa Code on line I found the following: 193C—8.1(542B) General statement. In order to establish and maintain a high standard of integrity, skills and practice in the professions of engineering and land surveying, and to safeguard the life, health, property and welfare of the public, the following code of professional conduct shall be binding upon every person holding a certificate of licensure as a professional engineer or land surveyor in this state. The code of professional conduct is an exercise of the police power vested in the board by the Acts of the legislature. 8.2(6) Unethical or illegal conduct. a. Business practices. The following guidelines regarding unethical or illegal business practices shall apply: (4) Licensees shall not solicit or accept an engineering or land surveying contract from a governmental body when a principal or officer of their organization serves as a member. I hope the council takes a look at the Iowa
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FDTROOPER
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12-06-09 12:39 PM
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No whining please. Just fix the **** streets.
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olderfd
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12-06-09 10:38 AM
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It does not make any difference what type of rating system the city engineer uses. If an elected official can profit from a contarct between his/her firm and the government entity that he/she is elected to serve, it's a conflict of interest. Even the Iowa board of enginer's has a question on that in the ethic's section of the exam.
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Anderson
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12-06-09 9:22 AM
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Developers should be required to install all improvements and include their cost in the price of the lots created, as is done many places, sometimes even including an impact fee to pay for schools that will be needed. That %695,000 federal subsidy for a purely local, individual need subverts the Constitution and is what has turned federal elections into the oriental bazaar that is destroying a glorious heritage.
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