Brookfield trustees have unanimously consented to allow Village Manager Riccardo Ginex to pay for a complete replacement of the village’s water meters out of the village’s water/sewer fund, ending any speculation that residents and other property owners might have to pay for some or all of the $1.5-million replacement cost for the meters and the system’s wireless infrastructure.
No formal vote was taken on the measure during a discussion of the issue during the board’s Committee of the Whole meeting on Aug. 28. Since trustees had already authorized the expenditure in the village’s 2006-07 budget, all Ginex needed was an OK on exactly how he was going to spend that money.
According to a schedule given to Brookfield trustees Monday night, installation of water meters in Brookfield homes will begin Oct. 25. Approximately 750 to 1,000 meters per month are slated to be installed throughout the village by work crews, Ginex said.
But the unanimous consent to allow the use of water/sewer funds for the project didn’t prevent trustees from engaging in a bit of partisan sniping, with each side attempting to claim some credit while questioning the opposition’s motives for the decision to move on the water meter project now.
Trustee Kit Ketchmark and President Michael Garvey, both members of the PEP Party majority on the board, stated that one of the reasons the village was able to take on the cost of the meter replacement now was that the fund’s reserve wasn’t depleted in previous years to pay for other initiatives.
Neither identified those initiatives specifically, but hinted at past suggestions by the previous VIP Party administration to use the funds to pay for such things as park land acquisition and park improvements.
“If we previously declared it surplus to pay for parks … we wouldn’t have had the money now,” Garvey said.
Trustee Linda Stevanovich, a VIP trustee who first publicly suggested the village should pay for at least part of the water meter replacement program, complained that the meter replacement project should have been completed sooner, saying it had been proposed “three or four years ago.”
“What I’m not hearing is the fact that a lot of people have complained we didn’t do the water meters sooner,” Stevanovich said.
In at least the last three village appropriation ordinances, money has been allocated for water meter replacement. However, the issue never progressed beyond the preliminary discussion stage in previous years.
“In terms of the delay, I’m not sure why,” said Garvey, whose PEP Party was in the board minority until the March 2005 election. “This has been talked about for years. It’s been in the budget for years. Now it’s finally coming to fruition.”
Despite unanimous agreement on how to pay for the meter project, trustees heard a complaint on the way the village sought bids for the project from the company that wasn’t chosen for the job.
Dave Wiegers, district manager from Sensus Metering Systems North America, appeared before the board to register his dissatisfaction with the informal bid process, claiming his company had not been given enough opportunity to make its case to the village.
“I’m here to ask that you reconsider approving your vote and allow us to meet to discuss our proposal in person,” Wiegers said.
In July, the Brookfield board approved hiring Midwest Meter to complete replacement of nearly 4,000 water meters throughout the village. The only other company considered for the project was Sensus, which submitted an estimate of roughly $1.8 million, nearly $300,000 more than Midwest Meter’s proposal.
In a letter to board members that accompanied his appearance at the Aug. 28 Committee of the Whole session, Wiegers enumerated his problems with the village’s bid process, saying his company hadn’t been given the village’s criteria for evaluating bids and hadn’t been given the opportunity to present information on its fixed-point read system, the type of system which Brookfield eventually decided to adopt.
He also said Brookfield officials never responded to invitations to observe the Sensus’ fixed-point read system in operation.
“It was rather an unusual process,” Wiegers said. “There was no formal bid, no RFP with specs or advertisement. We were never given the opportunity to meet face to face with the [Brookfield Infrastructure] committee. Our proposal was higher by 15 percent, but I would have liked the opportunity to sit down to try to explain that difference in price.”
Garvey, however, said there was no reason to reconsider the board’s decision to go with Midwest Meter, saying the village had gotten references from municipalities and had initiated a fair bidding process.
“I believe it was a legitimate process,” Garvey said. “I don’t believe any action to reconsider this at this time is necessary.”
