Councilman Stiltner's Questions

Councilman Stiltner and City Council,
Please see the questions and answers below from staff regarding weed control.
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Thanks,
Alan

From: Silvey, Michael
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2015 5:04 PM
To: Rosen, Alan
Subject: RE: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
Alan, please see below.
Mike

From: Stiltner, Scott
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 9:34 PM
To: Rosen, Alan
Cc: Silvey, Michael; Rivera, Cynthia
Subject: RE: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
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Asst City Manager Alan Rosen response in RED
Alan,
Thank you for looking into these issues. It confirms we have some work to do to get some things back on track. Have a couple more questions, comments and request for you.
1. With regard to the PD property, I am pretty confident that the contractor providing landscape maintenance services at the PD is the same contractor that has been doing it since the PD was built nearly 5 years ago. The weed problem on this property have been excessive and for the most part absent any reasonable and effective weed management in quite some time. Not sure my initial question was actually answered, so can you please confirm. Were all the weeds in the beds at PD sprayed with weed killer before the contractor recently mulched the beds? No, PWs’ crew failed to get that done prior to mulch being laid. However, all beds, mediums, and any designated area schedule for mulching will be sprayed prior to mulch being laid going forward.
Let me give you a bit more detail on Mike’s recall of a previous landscape maintenance contractor resigning from a contract with the City. The company, Tuff Turf, was in the midst of a contract extension period, from a long term contract, which contained a contract cancellation option with 30 days notice. Due to a series of conflicts that could not be resolved, Tuff Turf chose to exercise that option, however gave the City more than 60 days notice to re-bid or secure another contractor. Ultimately, the previous PW Director convinced the council that her department could handle the maintenance in house without substantial additional cost to the taxpayers and without neglecting other services that PW was responsible. She could not have been more wrong! That colossal failure rested squarely on the shoulders of that previous PW Director and I do not view any of that as the fault of current PW staff or employees.
2. If the PD was last sprayed for weeds more than 6-8 weeks ago, why was the contractor permitted to install fresh mulch directly on top of a mass weed problem without praying being done prior, especially if foreman have been directed to insure that coordination is being done. Please give me some clarification on this. I wish I could give you a valid reason, other than PWs dropped the ball coordinating the required work with the contractor.
3. In ref to the FDOT direction that our staff is to refrain from servicing our medians while construction is ongoing. Please provide me a copy of that direction by FDOT if it is in writing. If it was verbal direction I would appreciate a name and number of who gave that direction. I intend to do some follow up on this with State elected officials. It makes absolutely no sense that they would mandate City’s who are responsible for the annual maintenance of these medians to go into complete “neglect mode” while they are re-paving roadways around the medians, and allow the aesthetics of these medians to deteriorate. We were starting to make very noticeable progress on the medians with the spray and maintenance program, and now that we have stopped weeds are taking over once again, and at the worst possible time as we are about to head into spring. This is extremely frustrating! The last two times I talked to FDOT (Dunlawton project & Ridgewood Project) on the two projects in progress, it was mostly concentrated about mowing, I did not ask about spraying. However, I just talked with Rick Coe, FDOT Project Manager for the SR421 project (Dunlawton Av), he has given me permission to spray herbicides. I will have this started as soon as possible.
4. Why was Massey’s contract allowed to lapse without having another contract ready to go? It was not budgeted for FY15. Again, we have been making progress and now it seems another lapse is creating further set back. Why was this problem not brought be before council if it could not be handled at the department level? . In FY 2014 we were able to use unspent budget allocation below the $25,000 threshold and therefore were able to spray without needing any budget amendments from Council. However, since these amounts were not budgeted in FY 15, we were not able to spray. I do not know why it was not brought before Council for funding. I am currently working on locating funding within the current budget for a new contract. PW will come to Council if any approvals are needed for the rest of this year. We will also be including budget requests to ensure we have enough money in FY 16 to continue spraying through contractors. Council can’t help fix problems if we don’t know about them
5. Kudos to Mike for getting some new spray contractors lined up and ready to go, the sooner the better, as now is the time to get on weed control before spring gets here, just around the corner. I am having the past quotes verified since they are several months past and as soon as I get them back I will ask to process a multi-year contract.
The bottom line is that this current council has stated over and over their desire to see improvements to our landscape maintenance program City wide, but specifically in high visibility areas. We must find a way to do better, and do better now. January and February are critical months for addressing weed issues before spring gets here. If that is not done it will be a constant uphill and likely losing battle for the rest of the year. We MUST hold our contractors to the mandates in their contracts! We must also make sure that whoever is managing those contracts is coordinating weed management efforts over the next several weeks so we can get a chance to get some of these weeds under control. If there is something council can be doing to help, PLEASE insure this is being brought to our attention in a timely manner.
Get me the info that FDOT provided and I will be glad to get on that right away. We can’t wait any longer to work on maintaining our medians, especially the spraying. It will get exponentially worse in the coming weeks if they are not attended to asap. Do we know an approximate date of when they expect to be done with the paving? I estimate by Mid-April.
Please keep me posted on these issues.
Thank you, have a great weekend.
Scott
Scott Stiltner, Councilman
City of Port Orange, District 4
sstiltner@port-orange.org
386-871-4663

From: Rosen, Alan
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 2:51 PM
To: Stiltner, Scott
Cc: Silvey, Michael; Rivera, Cynthia
Subject: FW: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
Councilman,
Please see the staff response below to your phone inquiry from earlier today.
Thanks,
Alan

From: Silvey, Michael
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 1:52 PM
To: Rosen, Alan
Subject: FW: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
Correction, Massey’s last treatment was in January 2015 on Dunlawton.
Mike

From: Silvey, Michael
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 12:21 PM
To: Rosen, Alan
Cc: Rivera, Cynthia
Subject: RE: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
Please see below,
Mike
Ex. 5595

From: Rosen, Alan
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 11:37 AM
To: Silvey, Michael
Cc: Rivera, Cynthia
Subject: Councilman Stiltner’s Questions
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Mike Silvey DPW  response in RED
Hi Mike,
Please let me know your response.
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1. Who has responsibility for weeing the Police Department Property? PWs’ is responsible for weeding/spraying. Because of the prior contractor’s resignation, PWs’ forces were needed to pick up the additional mowing which lasted for a unexpected significant period of time. This forced the department to postpone other scheduled maintenance programs and projects (spraying, tree trimming, and nuisance tree removal). Only after the new contracts became effective, PWs ground crew was able to concentrate on trimming over hanging limbs and removing dead trees from city right-a-way areas that posed a danger to people and property.
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2. When was the last time it was sprayed for weeds? Roughly, about two months ago.
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3. Can we coordinate with other contractors to spray before they mulch? Yes, I have already instructed my foreman to do so.
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4. Who has responsibility for weed spraying on Dunlawton medians in the construction zone and the other medians? We are responsible for spraying. Note, FDOT has instructed that the city refrain from working in the construction area. We are responsible for the other medians where Massey last sprayed in January.
5. When was the last time the medians on Dunlawton were sprayed? Massey’s contract lapsed in January.
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6. If we’re behind, what are the other priorities that have kept us from keeping up? Personnel shortage, qualified/certified members qualified to spray, I have two certified crew member, but one is the foreman who needs to be supervising. Brushing back sidewalks.
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7. What was the history of our contract with Massey on Dunlawton medians (i.e., when it was dropped? why? Who’s be responsible since? When did we get bids? When ware we scheduled to award a bid? Note; prior to 2009 cut-backs, spraying was the responsibility of the mowing contractor (this could have been sub’ed out). Only after that did PWs pick up spraying responsibilities. It wasn’t till FY14 did PWs re-instated treating the mediums throughout the city because of the lack of equipment and needed fertilizer license needed to properly treat the mediums. However, the past PWs Director did not renew the spraying contract and dropped the program at the end of the contract term (because budget constraints & not was not funded for FY15). Since I have taken over, I have gathered and received three bids and plan on re-instating the spraying program once the Dunlawton and Ridgewood Ave., construction project are complete and released back to the city. This is estimated at $10,533 annually and I hope to have a multi-year proposal for the City Manager’s approval by the end of March, so we can have the contract awarded and ready, so when the city take’s back Dunlawton and Ridgewood Avenue treatment can start.
Alan Rosen
Interim Assistant City Manager
CITY OF PORT ORANGE
1000 City Center Circle
Port Orange, FL 32129
TEL: 386-506-5501
FAX: 386-756-5208