Two resolutions were adopted by 6-0 votes during the October Village Council meeting to allow the Village of Key Biscayne to issue a work order to GIT Consulting, LLC for Zone 1 alternative stormwater modeling and planning services in an amount not to exceed $240,810.
“It is part of a six-task outline,” said Chris Miranda, the Village’s Public Works Director. “(They) look at the current designs and see what alternatives can be made and give us a proposed cost for those designs.”
Village Public Works Director Chris Miranda.
The second resolution is to formally allow the actual work order.
“This is an alternative model,” explained Councilman Michael Bracken, who has been part of Mayor Joe Rasco’s appointed Ad Hoc Committee, along with Ed London and Fernando Vazquez, to seek lower-cost alternatives to the comprehensive AECOM design proposal.
The engineer behind GIT has done similar work with the City of Miami and the Miami-Dade County Master Plan, Bracken said.
“This is a completely different design,” Vazquez said. “Why I voted no last time, there was no reference point. I have no problem with a second opinion (on a schematic design).”
Vazquez said he just didn’t want engineers to come back to Council to “pick which pump. I don’t want to have a Battle of Engineers coming here.”
Mayor Rasco explained that it will be a four-month process.
“It’s sort of a comparison (with AECOM’s longstanding project),” Rasco said. “We want what’s in the best of our residents’ interest. We’re not moving ahead with AECOM’s design until we get to this point. We’re going through this for valid reasons, but we still have to look at those numbers at the end of the line.”
Councilman Ed London noted that $998,000 has been spent with Black & Veatch to support an AECOM project “that may or may not come through” and another $2.3 million with AECOM.
“The last time we looked at this … and you’ve been on that Council, we’ve been waiting 10 years to do something,” Rasco said. “I think we’d be well served to get the best answer.”