MINUTES OF MEETING

NORTH SPRINGS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT

The recessed meeting of the Board of Supervisors of April 4, 2001 was reconvened Friday, April 6, 2001 at 4:00 p.m. in the District office, 10300 N. W. 11 Manor, Coral Springs, Florida.

Present and constituting a quorum were:

Bill Bell President

Thomas L. Grossjung Secretary

Also present were:

Rhonda K. Archer Treasurer

Donna Holiday Recording Secretary

Dennis Lyles Attorney

Jane Early Engineer

Roger Moore Engineer

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call

Mr. Bell called the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes of the March 1, 2001 Meeting

Mr. Bell stated that each Board member had received a copy of the minutes of the March 1, 2001 meeting and requested any additions, corrections or deletions.

There not being any,

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the minutes of the March 1, 2001 meeting were approved as submitted.

THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Award of Contracts

A. Vertical Shaft Stormwater Pump Repairs

Mr. Moore stated every year we have divers inspect our pumps and about a month ago we inspected two pumps in North Springs Pump Station No. 1 and found two of the pumps had impellers that were badly corroded. Rather than doing underwater repairs we felt it was time to pull both pumps and have them refurbished and we put it out for bid. We received two bids for this work and the low bid was received from Farmers Manufacturing in the amount of $15,316.00 each for a total of $30,632.00. We recommend award the contract to the low bidder for the repair of the pumps. The pumps will be pulled, repaired and an epoxy coat applied. We feel that the pumps will last a long time with proper maintenance.

Ms. Archer stated in the other two Districts we found that the pumps that have been in use for 20 - 25 years had the same problem with corrosion. When they were pulled and sandblasted, you could actually stick your finger through the metal. We went through this same process last year in C.S.I.D. and Sunshine and we anticipated that the pumps in North Springs Pump Station No. 1 would have the same problem. It is our goal to get them refurbished and back in service before the rainy season starts and that is why we quickly bid it and brought it to you today.

Mr. Grossjung asked have we used Farmers before?

Mr. Moore responded we have not used them in North Springs but they are providing pumps for the other Districts. They make an excellent pump.

Mr. Bell stated a refurbished pump is a rebuilt pump and that is the direction we go as opposed to buying new pumps.

Mr. Moore responded it depends on the condition. As an example, C.S.I.D. replaced 6 pumps which were about 25 years old. These two pumps are 16 years old. Based on the inspection, the pumps are in fairly good shape. We will replace some bearings and build up the shaft. Sometimes when you pull them, you will find other things wrong but I don't anticipate that to be the case at this time. The manufacturer recommended that we pull the pumps every 7 or 8 years and re-inspect and re-epoxy them and with that type of maintenance they should last 50 years. We will look at all of the pumps in North Springs and rotate them throughout the Districts and pull a pump about every 8 years.

Mr. Bell asked what is the cost of a new pump?

Mr. Moore responded a new pump is about $50,000.

Mr. Grossjung stated we are repairing two pumps for $30,632.00.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the contract for the vertical Shaft Stormwater Pump Repairs for Pump Station No. 1 was awarded to Farmers Manufacturing in the amount of their low bid of $30,632.00.

B. Trails End paving and Drainage from Pine Island to Nob Hill Road and Work Authorization No. 70 for Engineering Services During Construction

Ms. Early stated we received five bids with the lowest bid being submitted by All-Rite Paving. Their total base bid was $450,937. The engineer's estimate was $614,124. If you look at the bid tabulation there are three stars next to their numbers which means they made a mistake in their bid. I would like to call them to verify that they will guarantee these numbers. I think they will. They should honor this price.

Mr. Bell stated if you just take the top one, we are only talking about five units, they would still be the low bidder.

Ms. Early stated that is correct. We recommend using All-rite Paving. Normally they are a sub contractor but this project is paving and drainage. A lot of the drainage is already in and they probably would have done the base rock and paving for someone else anyway. We are familiar with All-Rite Paving, they have just not been a primary contractor before.

Mr. Bell asked why would it have an asterisk on the bid tabulation?

Ms. Early responded we open the bids and read them out loud. At that time everyone can look at their bids and write down the numbers. We put it in a spreadsheet and type their hand written unit price and the computer calculates the total price. I believe the $5.00 was written incorrectly. We correct their total amount. The amount on their bid was probably a different number.

Mr. Grossjung asked are you asking us to proceed based on your conversation to determine that they are still the lowest bidder and that they will lock in this price or an adjusted price?

Ms. Early responded the price I am worried about is the $5.00. They might say that it was a mistake and that they wrote it incorrectly. We don't want them to exceed the next lowest bid.

Mr. Lyles stated we don't want them to increase their bid because you don't want American saying you awarded it on the low bid basis and then you changed it.

Ms. Early stated I am concerned about the line item where there appears to be a mistake. The problem is that I was not present at the bid opening at which time I would have called them.

Mr. Bell asked is there some exposure?

Mr. Lyles responded I wouldn't want to agree to approve it as long it doesn't exceed the engineer's estimate because that would exceed two of the other bids. We can award it based on the low bid submitted and the engineer told you at the beginning that they will probably honor this price and subject to her confirmation that is okay.

Ms. Early stated I can call my office to see what they wrote because instead of $25.00 they may have written something else on the total amount. They were low bid but it may have been a little different than this number.

Mr. Bell stated we are hearing from Ms. Early that even with an adjustment they are still going to be low bid. Do you see a problem with that?

Ms. Lyles responded it depends on the nature of what we are calling a mistake. We just have the tabulation sheet. It might be clear on the face of the bid proposal they submitted that there is just a little mathematical error or there is a decimal point in the wrong place or something like that. You can waive that and award it. It depends on what it is.

Ms. Early called her office and reported unfortunately, my office didn't give me an answer that made sense. They wrote for item 15, $5.00 and $85.00 which still doesn't make sense.

Mr. Grossjung asked is this time sensitive? Should we defer this until the next meeting?

Ms. Early responded this is by the school site and they want to get this road done before the start of school next year. The $85.00 was probably supposed to be the unit price in my opinion.

Mr. Lyles asked what if we approve it as submitted and then if it turns out that it was a technical error, there will probably be a change order somewhere along the line.

Ms. Early stated on the second item, they made a math error. They wrote $15,747.00.

Mr. Grossjung stated we are only off by about $800.

Ms. Early stated that is correct.

Mr. Lyles stated we tell them that we awarded the bid they submitted.

Ms. Early stated I am going to approach them that way. I will say they submitted $5 and this is what it came out to and unless he argues, I am going to say $5.00. He might very well say, he made a mistake.

Mr. Lyles stated on the other hand if he is so marginal on this bid, that $800 would make a difference, that tells us something we need to know as well.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the contract for Trails End Paving and Drainage was awarded to All-Rite Paving in the amount of their low bid of $450,937.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor Work Authorization No. 70 was approved.

FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Ground Water Storage Facility Plat

The ground storage tank by the FP&L site had to be platted because it was not previously platted.

Ms. Archer stated when WCI recorded the plat for the area around it, they deleted that area and it has not been platted.

Ms. Early stated this is approval of the plat for the District's ground water storage tank.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the plat for the ground water storage facility was approved.

FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Increase in Engineering Hourly Rate Schedule

Ms. Archer stated I discussed this with Ms. Early and they have not had a rate increase since July 1997 and I had her provide the current rate schedule and what is proposed and compared this with what we are paying for engineering services in other Districts and this is well below what we are paying for similar services in other Districts. I think it is fair and reasonable if the Board wants to consider it.

Ms. Early stated I provided the current rates, what we charge other clients and the proposed increase.

Ms. Archer stated the proposed increase is only in some line items but not all of them.

Mr. Grossjung stated does this mean that we currently don't have a senior professional?

Ms. Early responded some of the line items we don't have such as one for John McKune and that is why we added the senior professional job description. We added a couple more line items to apply to different types of people we have working on these projects.

Mr. Bell stated if you look at $10 on $90 it is 11 % or 12% over a four year period of time as an example.

Ms. Archer responded yes.

Mr. Grossjung asked will this take effect based on new jobs from this point forward?

Ms. Early responded from this point forward.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the increased rate schedule of engineering fees was approved.

SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Acceptance of Grant of 6' Utility Easement

Ms. Early stated this is due to a field change during construction. Heron Bay South is currently under construction and WCI had constructed a landscape berm prior to this project getting started. We proposed a sanitary sewer line adjacent to the berm. The way they built the berm, we would have had to remove a lot of their trees so we moved the sewer line over about five feet and they are giving us an additional 6' easement to the easement that we had.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the 6' utility easement was accepted.

SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Staff Reports

A. Attorney

Mr. Lyles stated my first item is the continuing saga of our bill effecting the District and the qualifications of future members of this Board and how they are elected. Since our last meeting, there have been further meetings and discussions and our lobbyist has been in the middle of this in Tallahassee. I have had contact with the Legislative Delegation staff, from committees of state government that are reviewing this bill wanting to know what we have to say about it and wanting background information on the District. I received a call today from the Local Government and Veteran Affairs Committee wanting to know our position and our understanding of this bill and I had a conversation two days ago with the Executive Director of the Broward Legislative Delegation in which she told me that the bill that we were uncomfortable with was being amended. There was supposedly a hearing on it yesterday and that amendments would go through and all the changes we were requesting were going to be in there and everything is going to be fine. That is mostly true. We are now looking at a bill that requires that the future members of what will be a five member board, be residents of the District and be elected by all the registered electors within the District and we are not going to have City Commissioners from Parkland or Coral Springs on the Board. They have agreed to not require you to have a special election this year which we were concerned abut because of the cost impact and they have pushed that back to next year to 2002 when there will be a general election throughout the County and we will seat additional Board members at that time through the general election and we will not have to pay for a special election within the District. The only thing they haven't gotten straight yet is elections after that. We will sit down and map that out to make sure it works. We have essentially gotten the bill modified to the set of parameters you gave us and our lobbyist to work toward and I tentatively told the Legislative Delegation Director and the Local Government and Veterans Affairs Committee and I have not yet finalized a conversation with the Governor's Office because they are calling me as well wanting background information and our position, but I have tentatively told them that if these changes are made that you have requested then the Board supports the bill. We have 30 days left in this session. Other people are interested in this. I don't know what is or isn't going to happen. Coral Springs is interested in this bill as well as the one for C.S.I.D. They have hired their own lobbyist and they would like a City Commissioner to be on the Board and right now that is not part of the proposed bill that is being considered. It has moved in the direction that you requested. It is now within the range of acceptable based on your previous direction. We need to keep after it because things can change especially on the last day or two of the session.

Mr. Grossjung asked can you bring me up to date since I missed a couple of meetings?

Mr. Lyles responded remember we started with a bill to eliminate the District and that was clearly unacceptable to the Board. You authorized retaining a lobbyist and sharing the expense with other Districts and fighting the bill on that basis. There were compromises from that position and the first compromise was at the local delegation hearing stage, where they were not going to terminate the Board and turn it over to the City of Coral Springs, but change the make-up of the Board to five members and have two members of the Board be from Coral Springs and two members from Parkland and one member at large and then we had a version where City Commissioners, one from Parkland, one from Coral Springs, would sit as Board members. At one point we even had a proposal that the Board be bumped up larger so we would have two Commissioners from each City on the Board. We have been all through that process and arguing back and forth and dealing with the people drafting the bill and legislative delegation staff. We always said on behalf of the Board that you have no objection to having a five member Board and you had no objection to have an election by electors as opposed to landowners. Once the timing of the election started to be discussed, they wanted us to have a special election this year to seat new Board members and you said no to that as well because it has a cost impact and then they had off year elections and we said no to that because then we would have built in recurring cost impacts. Our conditions on your behalf were no Commissioners and no off year elections. A five member Board is okay, elected by registered voters is okay and go to a system where we hold our elections at the same time there are general elections in the County so we don't have any special elections. We appear to be there. We will keep it there we hope through the end of the session and we will see where it takes us. Tentatively we have said the Board is okay with that modified bill.

Mr. Grossjung asked in the meantime if one of us can no longer serve, is the replacement appointed by this Board?

Mr. Lyles responded yes.

Mr. Bell stated the lobbyist and Mr. Lyles and others speaking on our behalf have done a very good job.

Mr. Lyles stated actually Ms. Archer has done a lot of the speaking on your behalf at the Delegation hearings and the lobbyist has been very effective. I have mostly been behind the scenes.

Mr. Lyles stated on a less happy note, we have been served with a law suit about 10 days ago by ARZ, the berm and sidewalk contractor from the Heron Bay project. Unfortunately, he has also sued Jane Early individually as well as Gee & Jenson. We have had our first strategy session on how we are going to respond to this law suit earlier this week at Ms. Early's office. The attorney for ARZ which is his second attorney, is looking to get everybody to come to the table and settle this case. He has sued us to light a fire and make us afraid. We have tentatively agreed to meet with him and explain why they are not entitled to any more money on this than what we told them they were entitled to. Gee & Jenson representatives and I, on your behalf, will attend this conference. They have agreed to hold off on any hearings or discovery or incurring any expense while we see if it can be resolved at the front end and that is the way I will approach it. The expenses for this will be billed to the construction sub account that relates to Heron Bay and will be a cost within that account and not to the District as a whole.

This has been bubbling for quite a long time because we have a very unreasonable contractor. His first attorney went through it all with us and I suspect explained the facts of life to the contractor at which point he was terminated and he has gone to a second attorney.

Mr. Grossjung asked is this the contractor who came to one of our meetings?

Ms. Early responded no, he was the contractor for the clubhouse. This is the berm and sidewalk around the perimeter of Parkland Isles. He did not understand the scope of work and he wanted a berm that was already shaped on which he had to do minimal work for his sidewalk. Part of the contract was to shape the berm. His big argument was that he had to hire a bulldozer to come out and shape the berm for him. He was held up. WCI had things going on and they had holes in the berm because they were using it as access and typical things which we agreed that he was entitled to some down time and we agreed with that all along but there were things that he was unreasonable about and certain times we didn't pay him because he didn't submit concrete cylinder tests. The contract specifically says that the sidewalk has to be accepted. You can't accept it if we don't have the testing and it calls for that in the specifications. He demanded his money and he never hired a tester. We ended up taking a deduct and getting the tests from WCI because they were testing as well right behind him. They had an independent testing his concrete which is good, because the contractor never did it. That was an argument where he said we were holding his money and that is why he is mad at me personally.

Mr. Lyles stated we are still holding his money.

Mr. Bell asked how much is he suing us for?

Mr. Lyles responded he wants the contract amount; he wants extras.

Ms. Early stated the big item he wants is $500 per day for 45 days delay and we asked him for some type of back-up and he doesn't really have anything. He hasn't submitted anything substantial. Then he wanted $1,500 for each remobilization. His first letter said $500 and we agreed to the $500. Now they think there is some confusion that we are writing $500 and I think he didn't show his attorney the letter where he wrote $500 and he is saying $1,500. We have to discuss that and we have the letter that says $500 for each remobilization and I think there were five or six remobilizations.

Mr. Grossjung stated that is a small amount relative to filing a suit.

Ms. Early responded the big number is the $500 per day for 45 days.

Mr. Grossjung stated that is $25,000. That is not a lot of money.

Ms. Early stated we have $15,000 in retainage that he never even submitted for because he wanted a lot of extras and we could never get him to agree. We met and did this before but he did not agree.

Mr. Lyles stated if there are any proposals that make sense to resolve the whole issue, it will come back before you for authorization.

Ms. Early stated we have to come back to you with a final, balancing change order, because we have not yet finaled out the project.

Mr. Lyles stated we will handle it and be back with a report on how it is going and maybe by the next meeting it will all be over.

B. Engineer

There not being any, the next item followed.

C. Superintendent

Ms. Archer stated during the month one of Ms. Early's people was in the field looking at a project being developed by Zom which is the Hamptons. They dumped a lot of construction debris such as curbing, and boulders into our canal and Ms. Early's people took pictures of it. I sent those pictures to the building department in Coral Springs and asked them to withhold C.O.'s and building permits in that project until it is cleaned up and they wrote back to me and said they can't do that because that has nothing to do with the building department. I took the same letter and forwarded it to the Chief of Police of Coral Springs and said I know there are laws on the books about dumping, either you or code enforcement ought to be able to get these people to clean up this canal. I have not yet heard from the Chief of Police. We are trying to get that cleaned up so they can't come back to us which is what they typically do and ask us to clean it out after the developer is long gone.

Ms. Early stated I am really surprised because when we did Heron Bay Commons Clubhouse, right behind the clubhouse is North Springs dike and they actually went up on top of the dike and they wanted the other side of the dike mowed and shaped and cleaned up a little bit because they said if you are on the second floor on the balcony of the clubhouse you can see over there. The only thing I can think of is that the water was high at the time and now the water is a little lower, and you can see the debris.

Ms. Archer stated they were probably okay with it when they couldn't see it but now they can see it, it is too late to do anything about it.

Ms. Early stated homeowners will call and think District staff is supposed to go out there and clean it up and we don't have any way to do that.

Ms. Archer stated we would really tear up that place if we have to get heavy equipment in to pull all of the concrete out that they dumped.

Mr. Grossjung asked won't they have to tear it up to do the same thing?

Ms. Archer responded yes.

Mr. Lyles stated we are putting two and two together assuming it must have been the apartment developer but we don't have anyone who witnessed it. I am sure that dumping this type of debris in a waterway is a felony in the State of Florida now. Even if we don't have an eyewitness we still would have a situation similar to what happened to Lennar in southern Broward County where they tied the debris to the original developer years later and ended up having a huge problem on their hands. I can put the heat on them now and let them know that we are not going to let it pass.

Ms. Archer stated it is interesting that the building department said even though the sign says the Hamptons a Zom Development, Zom isn't on the building permit, they were a sub-contractor. I will let you know what I hear from the Chief of Police and I will send it on to Mr. Lyles after that.

EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisor's Requests and Audience Comments

Mr. Bell stated if my house sells and I relocate out of the District, I must resign. Is that accurate?

Mr. Lyles responded yes.

NINTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of Requisitions and Invoices

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the requisitions and invoices were approved.

On MOTION by Mr. Grossjung seconded by Mr. Bell with all in favor the meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.

Thomas L. Grossjung William Bell

Secretary President