Amador County – The Amador County Transportation Commission approved a $1.3 million contract with Dokken Engineering on Thursday to start a project design document and environmental documents on the Pine Grove Corridor Improvement Project.
Commission Chairman, Supervisor John Plasse urged Dokken to hire locally on the project, including the “90 title reports that can be done locally,” and geotechnical work. Dokken president Richard Liptak said he would be glad to contact those who Plasse was talking about. Liptak said Geocon, his regular geotechnical firm is flexible about subletting work.
ACTC Program Manager and Planner Neil Peacock was confident Dokken’s work would leave nearly $700,000 in contingencies, of the $2 million cash-in-hand that the commission has for the project. He said California Transportation Commission allowed only 25 percent of that to “rollover” into the next phase of the project. Peacock proposed rolling over $500,000 of contingencies (25 percent), and sinking the rest into design.
He said the rolled over money means they could get started on the next phase, “Plans, Specifications & Estimates,” without having to wait for a state allocation, and may have enough money to complete that next phase.
Commissioner, Ione City Councilman David Plank applauded Peacock’s strategic analysis, but urged caution because he had “never heard where contingencies were not needed.”
Peacock said he will be personally upset if he needs to come back to the Commission for contingencies, and if he does, it would mean that Caltrans had missed something.
Liptak said “this is a not-to-exceed scope” of work and “if something we didn’t know or we forgot or we missed” comes up, “we will not come back for more money.” He said he runs the company and that’s why he can be there to say that.
He has done dozens of projects with his contractors, Liptak said, and Dokken is a 26-year-old company that does only traffic projects, and has 114 employees. Their list of contractors included Fehr & Peers, whose traffic model he said helped Dokken win the bid for the Pine Grove Corridor’s “Project Approval and Environmental Document.”
Liptak said he would meet monthly with Caltrans, 24 times over the expected two-year project, the time frame which included Caltrans’ final approval of the environmental document. Fehr & Peers’ lead environmental consultant, Namat Hosseinion, expected that to be a mitigated negative declaration.
The “constrained, through-town alternative” will fix what exists and build streamlining elements to help ease the through-town traffic on the highway.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
