Okay, let's go ahead and uh get the get the meeting started.

I want to bring up.

I'll bring up the agenda.

Um you don't all need to see the agenda.

I'm just gonna read it to you.

I want to call the meeting to order.

I have um this is the uh July Transportation Committee meeting.

I have 6 33 uh p.m.

Um let's start with.

I'm just gonna call out who's in attendance.

Um Christina, you're um yeah, Christina's on here from the board office.

So we have um Stephen Shore, Dan Sanford, Scott's uh Vice Chair Scott Stone, John Polliccia, uh Kara Gilbride and Ryan Hughes.

Uh missing as of right now is Terry Adams.

Terry just joined.

What was that?

Gary just joined, he's on.

Uh Kara's on here, yes.

I think I'm Terry joined.

He's on.

Oh, Terry, okay.

I see Terry now.

Thank you.

And can't Candace Weathers is the only one that is not on here.

Um, and uh of course we have uh Luke is with us and uh Chris Delasov.

I don't see any non-committee members on here as of uh this time.

So we'll call a meeting order.

Um we have one item on the agenda.

It's item T32.

Design um it was RFP 2025.0147.

It was submitted by the mayor on June 8th, approved by the Board of Finance on July 9th.

Um and here we are to talk about this.

I'm gonna hand it over to Luke in just a moment.

Um I just want to apologize to the committee and everyone and just sort of explain so everyone understands.

Um the uh the Board of Reps website has been down for several days, and we have no access to anything, uh basically.

Uh we have access to email, but um we have not had um a notice was uh sent out announcing this meet this um meeting to the committee last week, but uh for whatever reason it did not go or was not received.

That included the agenda with the link to all of the documents.

Um there the last that I saw the document documents was on Tuesday, the day after the steering committee.

Um I had actually reviewed all the documents that have been on um that were on the website when we had access to it.

At that time there were four documents as I recall.

There was the original submission email, um, and then there was the contract itself, and then there was the bid um presentation, and I believe there was also an insurance certificate.

Um I don't know if the details of all of those really matter at this point.

We will have access to them.

Um, but I want to apologize to everyone for whatever the issue was in getting those out.

I my my preference was for the committee to have full access to all the documents prior to the meeting.

Um I think a particular um interest and importance would have been the actual the the vendor's actual RFP presentation.

Um it included quite a bit of detail.

I think Luke is probably gonna give us um a very uh good thorough um presentation of exactly what this contract is for.

Luke, if you could also if you're if you're not already planning on this, give a little bit of the timeline.

Um go over the the the funding that um has been made available for this project um when the RFP went out, uh maybe at a high level, just um cover the bids that we have.

This is the one that was obviously selected.

Um then um may maybe the best way to start Luke is to is to talk about what the actual project is about, what it entails.

So I'm gonna hand it over to you, Luke.

Do you have a presentation you need to share?

I don't have a formal presentation.

No, I think you need to take up the item if you haven't already.

If what?

Uh you may have done it, but don't you need to take up the item?

Oh, yes.

I'm sorry.

Um, so um, do we have a second to take the item up?

Second.

Thank you, uh, Cara.

Um, all those that have that um approved to have the item added to it.

Um please say aye.

Okay.

Um the item is now out.

Go ahead, Luke.

Um, great.

So this uh project, so um improvements on Washington Boulevard have been a priority for this for the city and for the administration, and actually for the state for a few years now.

Um as you may know, there's been a uh recent spate of several fatalities um along Washington Boulevard.

Um it's considered one of the more highest crashed uh corridors in the city, um, especially fatal crashes within the city.

And I'm specifically talking um larger, yes, but kind of narrowing in certainly North State Street to North Street, more or less.

Um actually the block that I walk to work every single day is the most uh fatal pedestrian crash prone uh block in the entire city of Stanford.

Um so there's been a significant push both from the community, both from the city um to enhance roadway safety, especially along Washington Boulevard, which is a key north-south route within Stanford, as you all very well know.

Um back in 2020 um, uh the city of Stanford, um, excuse me, 2023, the city of Stanford and the state of Connecticut came together.

Um, as you if you don't already know, Washington Boulevard is a state-owned roadway.

Um, so it's a state road, it's not a city street, um, came together to perform a road safety audit.

So the state of Connecticut paid uh for a consultant to come down, uh basically to walk the corridor and develop recommendations um for safety improvements.

Um we got um we walked the quarter, we have public meetings, we uh the consultant in the state developed various recommendations um for improvements on Washington Boulevard.

Those are all in the road safety audit, um, which you can find on our website, SanfordCT.gov, and I think are also included as part of the legislative record.

This was a really great report.

It's one of the most detailed uh reports that the state has um done for a road like this, has a lot of uh background data such as crash locations and types, um, annual daily traffic, uh, which is uh or uh EDT, uh speeds, um, pedestrian crossing, so very a lot of great data.

So also we incorporated a lot of public outreach into this, which is not normally done.

So, you know, how do fe people feel on the corridor?

Whether they want to see improvements on the quarter, so a lot of community engagement.

We have public meetings associated with this, and it created a really strong planning document for the city and the state to kind of take and pick up and run with.

So we have this strong foundation of improvements uh that were developed um in partnership with the state of Connecticut, um, which is really important because at the end of the day, they're gonna be the ones signing off on any sort of proposed designs that we would want to see on the quarter.

So fast forward, the city put in the um not this current capital budget, but last capital budget, um, about 450,000 in funds for design, right?

So just to kind of differentiate between planning work.

So planning work is taking kind of this high level 30,000 foot view of what we can do to a corridor, um, and then coming up with recommendations.

Design is much more specific.

That's actually going to create construction documents.

So uh before you tonight is a contract with uh Stantec for um 403 uh 403,200, 43,205 dollars um for design services, the end product of which is gonna create um for us design and construction documents that we actually could be able to go out to bid with, give to a contractor, um, and start construction.

So um that is kind of where we're at right now.

So we had uh put out for a publicly bid RFP.

We received two responses um back.

Stantec was selected um as the best firm um in the eyes of the committee.

Um based on the various scoring criteria we have.

Stantec's done work in Stanford before.

They're actually they're one of the landscape designers for the Bed Fruit Forest Plaza project, uh, which is basically wrapping up in two weeks.

If you want to stop by and take a look at it, um they're also working with us on design for Atlantic Street, very similar, multimodal design.

And of course, um, they've been working with the state of Connecticut Department of Transportation on local road designs um around 95 as part of the 95 Pell project.

So um we're very familiar with Stanford, they've been working with Stanford um before.

We selected this firm.

Um they developed the uh scope of work um or if they respond to our RFP for scope of work, which is really to um improve pedestrian um and bicyclist and uh driver safety and improving multimodality within the corridor, right?

It's kind of a very car-centric corridor right now.

We want to create more of a complete street in line with our complete street ordinance as well as our vision zero program to improve safety, reduce vehicle speeds, enhance pedestrian crossings, enhance bicycle infrastructure.

So some of the things we're looking at is raised crosswalks at like the Hawk signals, which you push the button, the flashing lights go on, raising those crosswalks from our speed humps, raising some intersections, adding protected bicycle infrastructure, you know, possibly looking to raise some intersections, reduce some travel lane widths, things of that nature, really to improve safety, and of course, incorporate public meetings, public feedback, different items such as that and streetscape design, green infrastructure.

So this is gonna be a larger corridor project.

It's gonna integrate some of the work the state's already doing a Washington Boulevard south of our project area as part of the 95 project.

Um really kind of looking to holistically redesign the downtown portion of Washington Boulevard through this um contract.

Um so uh, you know, right now there's no like physical plan, right?

That's what you're working on approving right now to looking at for some of the concept ideas.

You can I would recommend looking at the um road safety audit that was conducted, um, but I don't have any like pretty visuals necessarily what to show you because that's what's going to come later down in the future.

Um I would say right now this is design work.

There's not any current um construction funding for what's covered under the design.

We do have some separate projects on Washington Boulevard, such as redo in the intersection of Washington, Maine that has state funding behind it.

We're already in design for that.

Um this is kind of like filling in the pieces that we don't have funding for, so we can have a more unified approach and redesign the entire corridor.

So with that, happy to take any questions.

This okay.

We have some questions.

Uh Stephen Shore.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Appreciate that.

Uh Luke, I I guess my my only question is um I I just feel like we're a little bit in the dark.

Um I I would make a motion.

I don't know when the appropriate time would do uh to do that would be to postpone this uh till the next regular meeting so that we can review all of those uh documents that never made their way to us.

And with that, I yield.

Okay.

Let's go through the questions.

Um I'd like to respond to that, but let's go through everyone's questions.

Well, let me let me just say that the just to be clear, what we're approving here is the contract for the vendor.

We're not approving any design, any concept.

Um at all.

There's and in fact, Luke, maybe maybe you can help at a high level just explain um one if this were approved by all by uh the committee and then by the board of reps.

Um what what are the next steps?

Um and and timeline from start to finish.

So um hearings and all of that.

Right.

Yeah.

So if this were to be approved, you would start what's considered the formal design process.

So that's things like survey, and then we would follow the 30, 60, 90, 100 design process.

So there's different deliverables that the consultant would create and for review.

So there'd be public meetings, public hearings at each review step to really show the public what we're designing, get gathered feedback from the public, got the feedback from local stakeholders on those specific design drawings, and we would keep progressing through each design.

Uh, frankly, a normal process like this is um, you know, it could be about two, two and a half years.

Um that's just kind of, you know, especially with the state, and also want to make sure we hear from the public.

Um that's kind of the normal process that we undertake here.

Um, so once you approve this, is basically we're off to the races and design.

You know, I think with we've heard a lot of public feedback about wanting to start this process.

Um, we really want to get this done.

This has been a very in-demand corridor for us to work on, um, especially just from local stakeholders and for the local community.

Um, I've never personally seen so much um engagement from the community on a singular road in the entire city uh when we were doing the planning process.

So this allows us to get concrete, right?

So it allows us to say, this is what the study said, this is what we're actually designing, this is what we are moving forward with.

Um so there's that whole engagement process that's associated with moving forward.

So multiple public meetings and stakeholder engagements are included in this contract that the consultant would assist the city with.

Um we'd be working with organizations such as Mill River, UConn, Downtown Special Services District, um, local business owners, um, um commute uh you know community groups, et cetera, on kind of bringing everyone together on this whole process to get to a final product work product for us here.

Okay.

And also just to make it clear, the documentation was posted to the public record a couple weeks ago.

We just haven't had access for the last few days.

Granted, that's not you know a significant amount of time to go through the documents, but they are they are past we uh posted.

We will have access to them hopefully very soon.

Um let's go through more questions.

Uh Representative Sanford.

I I think Representative Gilbride and Hughes were in front of me.

They can go ahead.

Okay, I didn't see the order that they went up, uh, but thank you.

Um Representative.

Dan, you can you can go before me.

It's fine.

Go ahead, Dan.

All right.

So I just wanted to point out that the information I think people are looking for was in the email that Sheila sent this morning.

It's got the attachments, and then there's an email submission in there.

There's a SharePoint link that has all the RFP stuff that people are looking for.

So if they're looking, I don't I don't know what other information people are asking about.

Um that's the only thing I was gonna point out.

So I I yield.

Thank you.

Um Representative Gilbride.

You just froze, were you calling me?

Yes.

Oh, thank you.

Sorry about that, Chairs.

Um, so um Luke, regarding um the cost, could you explain that to me?

I wasn't sure if this was um you know, coming out of capital or whether um this was just the agreement and like could you kind of or if this is part of the state funded part?

Yeah, so the c is 100% city funded, the city and approved by um the Board of Finance Board of Reps did approve the funding for this specifically.

Um it's already in our it was already in the capital budget that we approved.

So we've in essence already approved the funds.

So now we're just approving.

Yeah, and now we're approving the contract with this particular vendor, which is one of two people that applied who've already done work for the city.

Yes.

Is there any reason why we would should wait for next month, Luke, in your eyes?

Um I always like to get projects up and going as soon as possible.

Um, but it's of course the discretion of the board.

Yes, okay.

But I mean, we've done all the we've done all the other work to frame it.

So I don't think we're out of order legally to approve it um without something being on the website, especially if we've been given it.

So um, I mean, I know you know, with the deaths that occurred, the amount of um constituent feedback that we've received on Washington.

So anything that improves it is you know fine by me and clearly what everybody's been asking for over the years.

So it's exciting to see something uh getting close to coming to fruition.

I mean, everything takes two years, but to start.

So thank you, Luke.

I yield.

Representative Hughes.

Thank you, Chair Wards.

And I just wanted to ask real quick, it sounded like the answer was two years, but what year would we see implementation start and construction start on this project?

Um that's subject to funding, right?

So we do have um some funds available right now.

Um that could be as soon as 2027.

Um, but I think we we don't have one big project, but rather a few multiple projects on the corridor.

Part of my job and our part our department's job is piecing those together and coordinating them properly.

So you would see kind of a rolling wave of improvements on the corridor.

Um, this specifically are probably more of a 29 time frame.

Um, but we are working to get out there as soon as possible and quick as possible um with improvements and um you know delaying this just obviously you know kicks the can down the road a little bit more, but we are looking to um have some level of work starting in 2027 based on other projects that have been funded and designed.

Okay, yeah, no, I'm totally totally in support of this and would support this tonight.

Um as Representative Gilbride mentioned, this is such a um, you know, high, high important corridor um that has seen the fatalities.

Um and this is a corridor that constituents are constantly talking about um just how unsafe they feel on it.

Um so the sooner my perspective is the sooner we can reach the implementation and construction stage on these improvements, the better.

Um so thank you, Chair, and I yield.

Thank you.

Um Representative Shore, Gilbert, and Hughes, you still all have your hands up.

Um Representative Shore, did you have another question?

Uh yeah, um I mean uh first of all, just uh uh uh through through you uh Chairman uh worse to uh representative Stanford.

Um all I saw was a contract.

Um among those documents that were attached, there was an email uh that came through this morning.

Uh but then in the contract, there um is a schedule of the documents that the contract refers to.

Uh there's the RFP, there's the proposal from the vendor.

Um I have not seen any of those now.

Maybe I I missed an email, and and if so, I apologize.

You know, typically on the morning of a meeting or you know, some sometime over the weekend prior to a meeting, you know, I review these documents.

I don't think I failed to try to do that in a timely manner, but I'm just uncomfortable signing off on a half million dollar or 400,000 dollar uh single line item to a vendor without at least looking at the paperwork.

These the if I could just reiterate that the the email went from Sheila Hughes sent the email this morning at 949.

It went to the entire board, not just the committee.

Um as uh all the committee that that is the the normal procedure is following steering um uh on the it uh uh to each of the committees.

Um the agenda um goes out to the entire board for each committee.

So the entire board has access to these documents.

Um there were four documents that were attached, which included the documents.

Um to my to my last knowledge, the documents that were all uh uploaded um and and available prior to the website outage.

They're the same documents.

The original submission email um from um uh uh from assistant corporate counsel Chris De La Salva, um, and then the audit document, which is the RFP presentation from the vendor, and then the agreement.

Um I do know that there was an email that circulated later today that only had the agreement, and I'm not sure why that was, but that's probably it sounds like that's probably the email that you're referring to.

But the email this morning that went to the entire board regarding the the the subject is reminder transportation committee meeting tonight at 6 30, and then had four documents that were attached to it.

Chair, perhaps you can just forward it to him now.

Um I will do that.

Uh I I mean I I have an email.

Um I have an email that's time stamped.

Um that's well, it's from this morning.

Um I'm just looking.

It was 9 49 this morning when the email was sent to the board.

Yeah, I have that.

Uh and you've got the agenda and you've got the agreement.

The problem with the agenda is the link, at least when I tried it this morning, was broken.

Yeah, it's still broken.

The link, the link doesn't work, but that's why the the all four documents that are at that link are in the buttom line is I uh uh the bottom line is yes, maybe it came out a week ago, but I don't think it's unreasonable that like I think it was maybe Friday when the website went down.

The website's been down several days, right?

Yes, yeah.

And and so for several days now, it if you hadn't looked at it prior, uh you haven't been able to access the documents.

So I haven't seen the documents.

I'm being asked to vote on something I haven't reviewed.

Yep.

I'm I'm I'm with you, Representative Short.

You you saw my email last night, you know, referencing the fact that I understand that we don't have the documents and that they would be sent out today, and they were sent out today.

Uh just I move that we put it off a month.

I'll do the next meeting.

Okay.

So you have a motion on the floor to um to postpone to our next regular meeting.

Yeah.

Um do we have a second.

Okay.

Okay.

Um sorry, but hearing none.

Um, do we have any other questions from the committee?

No motion to approve.

Second.

All right, thank you.

So let's um let's uh um put this out for a vote.

All those that are in support of approving this.

Hold on, Jeff.

Um he just uh Terry just did a motion to approve.

So Terry would have to withdraw his motion and then you can just because then we have to do we have to vote on whether we want to move it and then vote again, or if Terry withdrawed his motion or approved, we could just vote on it.

Well, it's up for approval now, isn't it?

You just said motion to approve.

You just said that, Terry.

Okay.

Okay.

So if you just if you just take that back and then Jeff can move it for us.

Okay.

Uh well uh uh I'll take back the motion to approve.

Okay.

And and we already had a second, we had a couple of seconds already.

So I'm I'm gonna call this to a vote.

Um all those that would like to approve uh the item, please say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Uh nay.

Okay, we have one.

Um that was uh representative short.

Do we have any abstentions?

Okay, that passes.

Um Christina, do you have a count?

Let's see, did representative weathers didn't join, so we have yes, it would be seven one zero.

Okay, so this passes seven one zero.

Um that is the last item.

That's the only item that we had on the agenda.

Again, I want to apologize to everyone for you know, for this, it didn't go exactly uh the way I had hoped.

Um I do want to encourage everyone that once you take a look at the email or once the documents do become available on public record, once again, please do review them uh prior to the full board meeting.

Um do we have a motion to close the meeting?

So moved.

Second.

Okay.

Well, thank you, everyone.

Have a good evening.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a good night.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.