MINUTES

Chairman Monteleone advised the members that the minutes were previously provided to the members for review. Roy Smith moved that the minutes of the January 31, 2008, meeting be approved as submitted. Motion seconded by Ron Spradling. All voted in favor and the minutes passed. Roy Smith then moved that the minutes of the February 14, 2008, meeting be approved. Motion seconded by Ron Spradling. All voted in favor and the minutes passed.

Mr. Bill Lanham and Mr. Dan Shorts appeared before the board to give an update on the project. Mr. Shorts advised the board that they are well on the way with the project. However, they made an error due to the lack of communication between Mr. Lanham and himself and left Bob Krause out of the design-build process. Mr. Shorts stated that they completely dropped the ball and have no excuse. Mr. Shorts advised the board that they would like the board’s approval to continue with the process.

Chairman Monteleone requested Mr. Shorts to let the board know what they have done thus far on the project. Mr. Shorts stated that they put out the RFP and received two proposals. When they discovered their error of leaving Mr. Krause out of the process they stopped and have not scored the proposals. Both proposals are within budget.

Ms. Lipscomb advised the board that although this project has already awarded a contract and the ground-breaking ceremony has been held, she included the final cost scores in their meeting packet for their files and informational purposes.

Website Design

Ms. Lipscomb advised the board that she has developed a web site for the Design-Build Board. She did a presentation showing the board what was contained in the web site. Ms. Lipscomb requested that the members carefully review the language and approve the content. Currently the web site is a development site and is not live. Once the content is approved the website will have it’s own domain and be accessible to the public.

Chairman Monteleone questioned the members regarding their contact information being included on the web site. The Chairman would prefer that his address, phone number and e-mail address not be included. It would be his preference that all calls, correspondence and inquiries go directly to Ms. Lipscomb and she can distribute them to the appropriate board member. The members agreed. Ms. Lipscomb will remove the contact information from the web site.

Ms. Lipscomb stated that the board members may wish to take the material home and review it and then respond back to her with requested revisions since there is a lot of language contained in the web site. Chairman Monteleone advised the board that they should review the documents provided and let Ms. Lipscomb know within a week if they want any revisions, deletions or additions to the language. The members agreed.

Home Rule Application

Ms. Lipscomb advised the Board about legislation that passed regarding a pilot project which will allow some cities to utilize home rule. She stated that the City of Charleston has submitted an application to be one of the home rule pilot cities. A copy of their application was distributed to the board for review. Ms. Lipscomb questioned whether the board wished to provide an official response to the portion of the application that would allow the City of Charleston to be exempt from the Design-Build Procurement Act. The Board does not want to provide an official statement on their position at the upcoming hearing.

The Board discussed the City of Charleston’s application. Some of the concerns expressed were that most cities are not equipped to do a design-build project on their own. The projects brought before the board by cities and counties have the most questions because they have very little expertise in construction. Additionally, if a city is exempted from the design-build board then there is no oversight. They would develop their own track. There is question as to whether this would be a good use of public funds for any city. For the State of West Virginia to have a half a dozen different methods of design-build would not be effective. If a city decided not to follow the design-build rules, then the rules they would utilize should be clearly known to everyone. You can not have a number of projects being done in different ways with no consistency to them. Additionally, It is easy for an administration to say they are spending too much money following the rules. Maybe they can, but the rules are there for a reason. If a city would opt out of following the rules they will go down a slippery slope. A further concern expressed is that the exemption appears to be an attempt to take the architects and engineers out. When you do that, you also take over the responsibility to make sure you have code compliance where public safety is covered. If no one is there to make sure there is code compliance and you are only looking at the bottom line, you have a problem.

Chairman Monteleone advised that when the Design-Build Procurement Act was developed in West Virginia there was a lot of concern about protecting the public trust. Things were working fine with the design-bid-build method but there were a lot of federal contracts utilizing the design-build method of construction. There was a lot of interest in letting West Virginia be allowed to do it. There was a lot of concentrated effort by the architects, engineers, contractors and trade unions. The Act was established in statute and after a few years the Act was re-written with pretty substantial revisions made to try to tighten up some areas that were troublesome. Since public money is involved you must make sure it is the best method and you must follows the rules.

There being no further business to come before the board, the meeting was adjourned.