pre-proposal_minutes.pdf

First Name Last Name Company

1 Rachel Carlson ELI Construction 2 Grey Langemo Snap Tite 3 Mark Theetge Snap Tite

FTS-USDA FS KETCHIKA Conference Call Mr John Inman - Conference Leader

Jul 12 2011 @ 10:15 AM CT Confirmation # 5936792

FTS-USDA FS KETCHIKA-1

Moderator: John Inman 07-12-11/10:15 am CT

July 12, 2011 10:15 am CT

Coordinator: Excuse me, this is the Operator. I would like to remind all parties today’s conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time. You may begin.

John Inman: Okay. So are we ready to begin then?

Man: We’re ready.

John Inman: Okay, well good. Let’s go ahead and start. My name is John Inman. As I mentioned earlier, I am the contracting officer for this buy. I’m still hopeful that (Scott Jackson) will join us. But if not, that’s okay. We’ll go ahead. (Scott

Jackson) is the engineer that put the plans together.

I did not receive any questions from prospective contractors about the plans and so it may not be that we actually don’t actually need him. But I will still go through some of the basics of what the project looks like in our solicitation package and solicitation approach.

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And I’ll do it very, you know, in a very summary manner. And then if any questions do come up by all means ask either by - either at the time or as we go to the end. Proposals are due on the 18th which is next Monday by 2:00 and it’s not a bit opening. It’s an RFP so there will not be a public opening.

But we will receive the proposals and then we’ll start the process of evaluating the proposals and we’ll talk about that in just a minute. And I will say also this is a total (HUB) zone set aside. That was advertised in our first announced. And we asked for input from industry on that.

And receiving no objections we decided to stay with the (HUB) zone small business set aside. And I think the work is pretty self explanatory. There are

21 culverts that need to be repaired by inserting liners in them.

We’re not - rather than digging up the road and digging up the culvert and replacing the culvert we’re trying something different. We’ve not done it much in the Forest Service but I understand the State of Alaska has made it a practice lately to do this approach.

It will involve in some cases getting inside the culvert and jacking up, you know, where there’s - there are places where the culvert has collapsed a little bit jacking that up so that the culvert can got through anyway the liner, inserting the liner and doing whatever grouting and that kind of stuff is necessary on each end so all the water runs into it.

Some (rip-rap) on both ends, a little bit of digging and trenching and a little bit of - and there’s a parking lot grading effort that has to happen. But the road surface itself as we understand it, should never actually be damaged in the course of this project.

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Everything will happen under the road. And there is a basic requirement for all of the culverts except one and the option picks up that last one.

If we do have funds available this year we may award the option at the time that we award the rest of the contract we may also wait until early next year with next year’s money, October/November sometime, whenever next year’s money comes and exercise option 7 - the option - the first option item for that culvert is number 17.

And I think - and I’m myself, turning through the solicitation pages as I go and I’ll just make some notes. We do have 365 days after the notice to proceed for the performance.

Our philosophy here in the Forest Service in the Alaska region is we like to establish the performance requirement as generously as possible and allow the contractor to decide when they want to do it. If the contractor wants to get the job done in April and May that’s fine.

If they want to wait until July and August that’s fine. Hopefully by allowing the work to fit in with the contractor’s other work will get the benefit of a better price rather than specifying a rigid performance period.

So we just allow 365 although we know the project won’t take anywhere near that long once the work actually get started. We do - and I should mention again also I’m looking at page 48 of the solicitation.

But I want to make mention of the option item (unintelligible) that we reserve the right to exercise the option up to 120 days after contract award, basically four months and we say that on page 13 of the solicitation but back to page 8 where we were. And that provision is numbered F2.

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If we do exercise the option we don’t anticipate changing the period of performance. So if we do exercise the option within that 120 days then all the work including the option work will still be due within 365 days.

So a contractor might not want to get out there on the fifth or tenth day after contract award or after notice to proceed and get all the work done. They might have to mobilize again in case we exercise the option. But that’s the contractor’s call when they do the work.

Because this is a (HUB) zone set aside the limitation on subcontracting clause on the very bottom clause on page 13 of the solicitation does play in a contractor, and I forget exactly what the percent is, 15% of the work if I recall correctly, the clause will control.

I’m just illustrating. But about - the certain percentage of the work, I think about 15, the contractor will have to do with his own employees or with employees of another (HUB) zone contractor. On page 14 I note that this is -we are calling this a construction contract.

We had some discussion in our office but we are calling it a construction contract for renovation of a major work. And so the Davis-Bacon Act will apply with its wage determinations and payroll requirements and so forth. Let me see.

And on page 26 of the solicitation as you are all aware, we are not hosting a site visit but we do have an expectation that offers will visit the site themselves at their convenience to familiarize themselves with the conditions that are there as part of their proposal preparation process.

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And the site is public and it’s open and anyone is free to visit at any time. And with plans in hand you should be able to see all the work that needs to be done. And that’ll take us then to our technical proposal which starts at the very bottom of page 26 of the solicitation.

We are asking for a very brief technical proposal. We don’t want much. We don’t want to evaluate much but just enough information to allow us to discriminate between offers and select the best value.

And we do put page limits in, in order not to overburden us and our evaluation team but also as a help. Our hope is, is that the information that we will get will all be pertinent to what’s going on here. And so we describe in our technical approach volume the summary narrative that we want.

We do - and we ask for a contractor to sort of in words, paint a picture for us of the in state conditions and what things are going to look like. We do make specific note though of the culvert liner. We do have some interest in that liner. We do say regarding the Snap Tight liner, we say brand name or equal.

The reason we do that is, is because rather than actually specing out ourselves the actual detail specification for the liner we simply look out there in the world and we see something that others are using and that appears to work and that we’re satisfied with.

And we did this with this product because we understand the State of Alaska uses it. And we say that product is good enough for us. And the or equal means that our offer is still free to offer a different solution.

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And we ask them in their proposal in that section one, to describe the particulars of that product along with the other things that are required in there.

So this is not a brand name requirement in that it must be Snap Tight but it is a brand name or equal in that we believe the Snap Tight product is entirely what we want but we’re also interested if there’s another solution out there, in hearing about it and an offer is free to propose that.

And the limit on that section one is six pages and the past performance section is four pages describing four contracts, one page per contract. That’s the section two of the technical proposal.

And then section three is the actual solicitation itself with signatures, prices filled in, boxes checked and the reps and (unintelligible) and so forth. And we are asking for two copies of that proposal to come to us. we do say bound into a simple folder.

We don’t require anything elaborate. We don’t require color. We don’t require anything other than what we would describe there.

But a simple high school report binder just to keep the pages together, allow us to pull the pages out so we can scan them in if we have evaluators at different locations around the (Tongas), the national forest but just o keep the pages together.

And we do require those proposals to come into us on paper. We’re not accepting fax or email proposals for this. And then I do describe - we do describe on page 28 of the solicitation the way we’re going to evaluate the proposals, a very straightforward approach.

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We’re going to evaluate the technical approach, the offerer’s past performance and the price. And those three are the evaluation criteria that we will be using for this selection. The attachments to the solicitation are the wage determination first.

The second one is our supplemental specifications. Attachment two is the supplemental specifications to FPO3. FPO3 we are incorporating by reference because there are a few sections of that that apply to our actual work.

So our supplemental specification which is attachment two, has to be read hand in hand with FPO3 to understand what the specification requirement is.

And then the last attachment is the actual plans or the drawings. And that’s pretty much all that I have and as my prepared presentation to say today.

A - the - I would like to ask though if there are any questions from anybody out there and on the telephone about our acquisition approach or about the requirement.

(Gray Langolar): John, (Gray Langolar) here with Snap Tight.

John Inman: Yes?

(Gray Langolar): The or equal is it - it does have to still meet (Ashto) M326?

John Inman: Well I don’t know that. You know, we haven’t - we didn’t identify a testing requirement. I assume when you mentioned the (Ashto) - the number, is that a testing requirement or a material requirement or what kind of requirement is that?

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(Gray Langolar): That’s a national standard for culvert rehabilitation.

John Inman: For the components of the materials or for...

(Gray Langolar): That’s the national standard that states the lining system that can be used that meets national standards.

John Inman: Okay.

(Gray Langolar): It specifies the lining system requirements for culvert rehabilitation - (Ashto)

American Association standard, highway transportation officials.

John Inman: Right. So it defines the composition...

(Gray Langolar): M326...

John Inman: ...of the materials and the strength requirements and wall thickness...

(Gray Langolar): Yes.

John Inman: ...requirements and such as that?

(Gray Langolar): Yes. Yes, sir.

John Inman: Okay, yes. I can’t answer positively that that is part of the or equal. I suspect it will weigh very heavily in it but I can’t say positively right now. But at least we have the question recorded. And we may be able to get an answer out in time or, you know, within the next few days or we may not.

So I just can’t positively answer that question now.

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(Gray Langolar): Okay.

Man: Has there been other products that have been suggested?

John Inman: I have not received any. Sometimes in a situation like this a contractor - a prospective contractor will come in and say I propose and they’ll get a, you know, a clearance ahead of time. We haven’t had any requests at this time.

And is there anything else?

Well I thank you all for coming on the line here today. The - I will post minutes of this meeting on the Fed Bus Ops Web site here some time in the near future. And like I said, proposals are due on July the 18th which is next

Monday at 2:00 pm Alaska time and due here in Ketchikan, Alaska.

And we do have - this is a funded project and we do anticipate making award as soon as possible. We may or may not hold discussions. It depends on the proposals that we receive. If we have to hold discussions we will. If we get good proposals and we can award without discussions we will do that also.

Thank you very much.

Man: All right. Thank you John.

END