Agenda - 05-17-2011- Information Item 1

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Easement Acquisition At this stage, all property owners from whom we need easements in both the Efland and Northern Buckhorn area have been contacted by County staff. Negotiation of the easement agreements is underway and some of the easements have been obtained. As was mentioned above, all easements have to be acquired by July 1, 2011. Staff is currently planning to bring all the easements to the BOCC for final approval at the June 23, 2011 meeting. Railroad Right-of--Way Licenses The process of obtaining licenses to install a portion of the sewer line in the railroad right-of--way is complete for Efland. Our license applications for areas of occupancy in two areas in Central Efland have been accepted and approved by the NC Railroad Company and Norfolk Southern. We are in the process of obtaining a license for occupancy in the Buckhorn area along Washington Street. There was some thought given to moving that portion of the sewer line out of the Railroad right-of--way, but given the time constraints imposed by the SRF loan, the decision has been made to resume the process to obtain a railroad occupancy license for the sewer line along Washington Street. Construction Oversight The original engineering consulting contract for this project included a construction oversight component. However, the original project concept was that all of the Buckhorn sewer and Efland sewer extension work would take place at the same time, as one construction project. What actually happened was the Southern portion of the Buckhorn project that was meant to serve Gravelly Hill Middle school was put on a fast track in order to extend utilities to the new school in a timely manner. Much of the money available for construction oversight in the original contract was used for the construction of the South Buckhorn water and sewer extension. The original consultant has submitted a proposal to provide construction phase services for the upcoming sewer extension project. Staff feels that this proposal is extremely costly and would like to open up the possibility of using another firm by issuing a Request for Qualifications for construction phase services. The decision on who will provide construction phase engineering services and the fee negotiations for this will have to occur concurrently with the construction bid process. In other words, we will need to have an engineering consultant ready to provide construction phase services at least by the time the BOCC approves the construction contract in August 2011. Next Stens Due to the application process for SRF loan funds, the project is constrained to a specific timeline, as briefly mentioned above. The next deadline is to put the project out for bids by mid- to late-May 2011. This would allow the bids to be out for at least thirty days and give time to compile the results to submit to the State for Authorization to Award. The Authorization to Award from the State Construction Grants and Loans office must be issued no later than August 1, 2011. The last pre-construction deadline is the award of the construction contract, which must occur by September 1, 2011. Staff will be bringing the construction contract before the BOCC for approval at the first meeting in August following the summer recess.