PBC Recommends Moser Pilon to the Board of Selectmen for Crystal Lake School Project

The PBC was back at it Tuesday evening, discussing the and Windermere School addition. 

Peter Welti, Chairman of the PBC, went step by step through the process they followed to reach a decision. The project was approved and sent to referendum at the beginning of 2012 when the PBC was given authority to “do what it takes to get the project done.”

The process for hiring an architect began in March. Welti explained that there was a change in state law that formalized solicitations and proposals, among other things. The architect-bids would be submitted and a sub-committee would need to narrow the bids to just four choices.

CREC was able to do this work for the town, but the PBC decided to save some money and do the work themselves.  The town saved between $17,000 and $23,000 by not using CREC’s services.

Welti went on to explain further about how the sub-committee narrowed down the bids to four options. The PBC met on June 9 to score the bids. The scoring was based partially on state mandates (Public Act No. 08-169, Sec. 17 subsection (b) of section 10-287). The state mandates included consideration of the proposer’s pricing, experience with work of similar size and scope, organizational and team structure, past performance data which includes project schedules and project budgets, the number of change orders, approach to the work, and documented contract oversight capabilities. 

The PBC sub-committee also added their own criteria to judge the potential architects and then gave them each a score:

• Moser Pilon- 173.25/210=82.5
• Friar- 165.5/210=78.8
• Kaestle- 150/210=71.4
• Silver- 140.75/210=67
• Jacunski- 128/210=61

“We’re tough graders,” Welti said.

The sub-committee went back to the Permanent Building Committee board with their top four choices, which they took based on the scores. Welti said, at that point the slate was wiped clean. 

, the PBC unanimously passed a motion to negotiate with Moser Pilon at their meeting on July 24. This was after they interviewed all four candidates for 50 minutes each, with the same 15 questions. 

Gary Magnuson, Vice Chair of the PBC said that almost immediately two of the four bids were knocked out of the competition. 

“Moser and Silver were the two left standing,” Magnuson said.

Welti emphasized that nothing’s written in ink, yet.  “(Moser Pilon) have not been hired,” Welti said.  “We’re still in negotiations.”

Thomas Adams, member of the Permanent Building Committee added, “There are no reasons why we didn’t select the others.  We’re still in negotiations.”

Adams said if something falls through, the town will still have options.

But that wasn’t good enough for some members of the audience, including members of the Board of Finance. Among some of the concerns Board of Finance Chairman Robert Clements listed off, he said he couldn’t understand why the PBC didn’t use CREC. 

“You didn’t use CREC to save money, and then you awarded it to the highest bidder,” Clements said.  “I just don’t like the automatic awarding to Moser Pilon.  It doesn’t look fair and open.”

Welt responded again by saying no one had been awarded a contract. 

Gary Magnuson said, “It’s not strictly about cost.  It’s about the best product for the town.”

Magnuson motioned that the PBC recommend to the Board of Selectmen that Moser Pilon be hired based on their vetting process. 

The motion carried with three against. Moser Pilon has done all of Ellington School’s contracting for the past couple of decades. Gary Blanchette, member of the PBC said, “I would be happy with either, but I thought we were going to negotiate with both, not just one.”