Amador County – Ione City Council on Tuesday directed staff to extend the deadline for responses to a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a city sewer engineer so that more companies can try to complete their projects.

Mayor Ron Smylie said the Wastewater Committee, made up of himself and Councilman Lloyd Oneto, recommended extension of the RFP deadline to March 23 so more companies can answer the request by the city for proposals for wastewater engineering, and program management, to handle the drafting of a “Report of Waste Discharge” to the state, and “related services.”

Smylie said “we had good interest from all four companies” but only one company was able to get together a proposal in the time frame allowed. He said the Committee sought to extend the deadline for submittals “so the other three companies could more fully answer the Request for Proposals.”

Councilman David Plank asked when the Mayor expected to hear from the other three companies. City Attorney James Maynard said they expected to hear from them by March 23. Maynard said the city must inform the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board of the extension, as it makes a request to extend the deadline of the work needed to meet the Cease & Desist Order.

That next communiqué, due March 16, will include responses to some issues over the city’s Seepage Discharge Elimination Plan. Maynard said it should include notification that the city has extended the RFP period.

City Manager Jeff Butzlaff said a one-week turnaround was not enough for all of the companies to answer the RFP, and on consensus, the council extended the deadline. Butzlaff said on March 16, the city will provide information to the Regional Board for its upcoming Cease & Desist Order hearing at the end of March. He said they would like to have an overall extension on the entire list of work, extending the final deadline by six months out to spring 2014. But he said the most important extension would be for the Report of Waste Discharge, which is due May 31.

The one company that met the RFP deadline was BEN/EN, or Bennett Engineering Service, and the company told him they could have made a better effort if given more time. Butzlaff said it was better to have somebody that the city has confidence in, rather than whoever can reach the starting line first. He expected the city to have the engineering firm selected and appointed by the first meeting next month, April 3.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.