Frustration on tap: Sweeny fed up with water project delays

SWEENY — The City Council was boiling over last week when it came to the touchy subject of the water project.

A 12-month project that has stretched into 36 months led by the company Texas Pride Utilities LLC was addressed when council put the possibility of the contract’s termination on the agenda. This would involve a process of either calling the surety bond and causing the contractor to have to find a new company to perform the work at the original contracted price or walking away and rebidding the project. Either option can take several months.

City Manager Lindsay Koskiniemi laid out the issues that have forced the city’s hand, citing quality control problems to go along with the delays.

In addition, she noted the carousel of project managers from Texas Pride that had taken over the project with varying degrees of success. The city’s engineers, Strand, also apologetically expressed frustration with the process, indicating they accepted some of the blame for the delays, but were ultimately hamstrung by the contractors as well.

“I’ve met with Texas Pride three times since I’ve been here and we never saw any significant duration of improvement,” Koskiniemi said, drawing attention to Texas Pride co-owner Luis Guerra who had attended the meeting. “The improvement would persist for a week or less and it would be same-old-same-old. No-call-no-shows from the crews, never got a work schedule, and I’m not saying that to beat you guys down, but we’ve had so many issues on this that my recommendation to council is call the performance bond.”

Guerra spoke contritely to council, indicating his own fault in the failures of the project and promising his personal attention to bring the work to a swift conclusion and correct past mistakes.

“I’m one of the owners of the company and I’m here, not passing the buck, but absolutely taking responsibility for what’s happened,” Guerra said. “We’ve failed the city. We’ve failed the residents. As part of the ownership team, I’ve failed my employees because I didn’t supervise them enough.”

The company would outsource wet connections of water lines out of pocket in an attempt to speed up the process and make things right with Sweeny. Guerra said.

Texas Public’s submitted revision would finish phase one of the project by the end of the month. Connections on Hackberry Street would be finished by Veterans Day on November 11, Second Street would be addressed the following week and Main Street leading up to Christmas.

Council expressed a fair amount of distrust due to the practices they’d experienced so far.

Koskiniemi pointed out the large price tag of the project, addressing the amount the company was responsible for.

“That’s $2.34 million in the contract that they signed that is very well documented that they defaulted on,” she said.

Councilman Tim Pettigrew, acting as mayor pro tem, asked about the reasons for the delays and was told that the reasons varied from a lack of labor, to difficulty in finding water lines, drought and acquiring materials. However, none of these items were documented. A lack of communication and required change orders for the project was a sore spot, adding not only to the length of the project, but issues with overseeing work by engineers and city employees.

“I’m a trained project manager, and I can tell you that you have not submitted a change order request,” Koskiniemi said. “Now that is a critical error on your part. That would have documented those challenges to these gentlemen here and that would have been presented to them.”

Councilman Brian Brooks addressed Strand representatives, asking why it had taken so long for the issues to come before council in a meaningful way.

“So what took so long for y’all to come to us and say, ‘Hey, look, they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Just wanted y’all to know?’ Brooks said. “We’ve got citizens over here with black pipes that have been in their yard that they’re mowing over for years— a couple of years, so I guess I’m upset with y’all because it seems like y’all should have come to us.”

Council ultimately, due to the length of the legal process of calling a surety bond, decided to accept Texas Pride’s updated timeline under heavy provisions that they follow through with what they’d promised. Among the qualifications, the city indicated that they would be checking on progress at the November meeting, as well as having all of the work signed off on by the city.

Council also warned Texas Pride of the city’s need for the roads to be cleared and available for events such as the annual Veteran’s Day parade.

“I can promise you and guarantee you that we can get this job done, if not 100 percent, then 95 percent before the end of the year,” Guerra said.

In other business, the idea was also floated of allowing qualified voters to change the city’s ordinances regarding the sale of wine or mixed drinks within its limits in a restaurant setting. While the city only had a discussion on the topic, it was positively received and council indicated they would not be opposed to it appearing on the ballot for Sweeny residents to decide.

Other items were tabled to the next meeting, including a discussion on how to use American Recovery Act funds for community projects and how the Crime Control and Prevention District would put a suggested allocation for replacement law enforcement equipment from existing sales tax, with regards to a split between that item and the Economic Development Corporation, which currently receives the full, available one-quarter cent available after county and municipal allocations are made.

In an executive session, members were chosen for the CCPD, while Councilman Bill Hayes resigned from the committee due to what he saw as potential conflicts of interest with his placement on the EDC. New members include retired resident Larry Cissna, educator Megan Smith, Fire Department volunteer James Christian and Front Range CPR owner Woody Tolley.