Amador County – Jackson City Council last week reaffirmed what it has known for 17 years – that its engineering firm is the best company for the city.

The council completed committee interviews, following a request for statements of qualifications as required for federally funded projects, and last week passed a resolution affirming Weber, Ghio & Associates Engineering as the city’s continued engineering consultant. City Manager Mike Daly said the city received six statements of qualifications and all six firms were qualified, and Weber Ghio was “deemed to be the most qualified and the best fit for the city.”

Daly said Weber Ghio is the same firm the city has been contracting with since 1995 for engineering services and will likely be a hard company to try to outdo for the position. The designated city engineer is Roark Weber.

He said the firms all were interested in placing their names on a “pre-qualified list” for other engineering projects in the future for the city. Daly said “we have five firms now on the list and they could be used in consultation on other projects.”

The City Council approved a resolution designating the city engineer as Weber Ghio, with a motion by Vice Mayor Connie Gonsalves, who said that the resolution should “emphasize that if we need assistance from the companies on the pre-qualified list of consultants, that we stay local first.” The resolution passed 5-0.

Daly said the procurement of statements of qualifications came after a meeting with Amador County Transportation Commission, and was required to continue to receive federal traffic funding through the California Department of Transportation. He said a Federal Highway Administration audit raised a red flag in Jackson and across the state about not having a competitive process for selecting consultants.

The recent ACTC grant is for the Kennedy Mine’s Tailing Wheels wheelhouse project, Daly said, and they did not have a full bid for the old project because it was under $150,000, but new requirements kick in for a formal selection process. He said engineering was formerly considered part of city staffing, and now it is not, causing the need for the formal bidding process once every five years, for FHA funding.

The firms submitting statements were Burne, Dokken, KASL, Wetherby-Reynolds-Fritson, Weber-Ghio, and Willdan Engineering.

The hiring committee of Councilman Keith Sweet and Mayor Pat Crew interviewed the six candidates. Sweet said he sat through six hours of interviews with the applicants. Crew and Sweet said all six were well qualified.

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