Boyceville fire district perplexed over $5,120 invoice

By LeAnn R. Ralph

BOYCEVILLE  —  Members of the Boyceville Community Fire District board have held off paying an invoice from Architectural Design Group for $5,120 until they can figure out what it covers.

Brian Marlette, fire chief, said at the April 13 meeting of the Boyceville fire district that he had talked with a representative of Architectural Design Group and had been told the invoice was for several meetings with the Boyceville fire board, firefighters and the five-year planning committee and for the last preliminary drawings of a new fire station.

The Boyceville fire board and the Five-Year Capital Improvement and Planning Committee have been working with Five Bugles Design, which is a subsidiary of Architectural Design Group out of Menomonie.

Marlette said he had been told that if ADG/Five Bugles was not going to get the bid for designing a new fire station, then the company needed to be paid for work that had already been done.

In July of 2014, Five Bugles Design agreed to do a feasibility study for the fire district about the possibility of building a new fire station and possible sites where a new fire station could be located.

Five Bugles completed the feasibility study for $5,000, and the fire district paid $2,500 on two separate occasions to cover that cost, Marlette said.

Marlette went on to say that he had been told that if representatives for Five Bugles knew they were going to obtain the contract for designing a new fire station, the additional $5,000 fee would be waived.

Mike Blechinger, representative for the Town of Tiffany, said he had thought the last set of preliminary drawings were part of the original feasibility study and that if Five Bugles were hired to actually design the building, the company would charge an additional fee for design costs.

Marlette suggested that the fire district board may want to have someone from Five Bugles/ADG come to the fire board meeting to explain the invoice.

“This is the bill I kept getting for the last couple of months. At first I thought it was for the bill we had already paid,” Marlette said.

Representatives of Five Bugles Design “feel that they have been kicked to the curb,” Marlette said.

Five Bugles came to a  meeting in November, and part of the information presented included a design cost of $100,000 on a $1.9 million building, said Rich Monn, representative for the Town of Stanton and chair of the five-year planning committee.

If the cost of the new fire station turned out to be $1 million, would the design fee be $50,000, or would the fire district still pay a design fee of $100,000? Monn wondered.

Minutes

Gilbert Krueger, Boyceville village president and chair of the fire district board, stopped the meeting for a brief period of time to review the minutes from previous meetings.

In September of 2015, the fire district board approved a motion to “revisit” Five Bugles Design as the architect, Krueger said.

“I’m not finding anything in the minutes that refers to $5,000,” he said.

The invoice states that the $5,120 is for a “contract amount,” Krueger said, wondering if anyone had signed a contract with Five Bugles.

“I have not signed anything,” Marlette said.

None of the members of the five-year planning committee recalled signing a contract as well.

Members of the Boyceville fire district board approved a motion to pay the bills but to hold off on paying the invoice from Architectural Design Group until a conference could be held with representatives of the company.

Krueger indicated that a conference call would be held with Five Bugles the following Tuesday afternoon to try to resolve the issue.

Cost estimate

During a meeting with the five-year-planning committee September 23, 2015, Dave Chihasky of Five Bugles design told committee members that if the design for a new fire station were finished by January 1, 2016, the project could be advertised for bids in January or February.

At the September 23 meeting, members of the five-year planning committee said they needed a cost to take back to their respective town boards so members of the town boards would know how much money each town would contribute to build a new fire station.

Chihasky told the committee at the September 23 meeting that the fire district would have to determine a budget for the new fire station and that Five Bugles would design a building on a “not to exceed” cost.

Cost estimates for a new fire station have ranged from $1 million to nearly $3 million.

Several members of the fire district board have said their respective town boards would be hesitant to approve building a new fire station based on such a broad estimate of the cost.

RFPs

Over the past several meetings, the five-year planning committee has been working on writing a Request for Proposals to send out to architectural firms for designing a new fire station.

Last fall, members of the fire district board wondered if the district is required by state law to solicit bids to enter into a contract to design a new fire station.

Terry Dunst, an attorney with the law firm of Bakke Norman, sent an opinion to the fire district dated December 4, 2015.

According to Dunst’s written opinion, the Boyceville fire district is not required by state law to following the bidding requirement to bid on contracts for professional services.

Dunst went on to say that while state law does not require the fire district solicit for bids to design a new fire station, “it is often a good idea. Public entities that spend public money are required to spend that money wisely, in the best interest of the public. To ensure that you are getting the best ‘bang for your buck’  — the best quality for a fair price, public bidding is often a very good way to make sure that money is spent wisely.”

Five-year planning committee members decided at the December meeting that there were two options: to recommend that the fire district board send out requests for proposals or go ahead with the Five Bugles proposal of $100,000 to design a new fire station.

Members of the five-year planning committee unanimously approved a motion to recommend that the fire district board send out RFPs to architectural firms for designing a new fire station.

Voting in favor of the motion were Monn (Stanton); Paul Wathke (Sherman); Jill Huber (Town of New Haven); Ned Hahn (Hay River); Gilbert Krueger (Boyceville); and Mike Blechinger (Town of Tiffany).

Authority

Dunst also pointed out in his December 4 correspondence that it does not appear the fire district has the authority to enter into contracts.

“In reviewing the Boyceville Community Fire District agreement, I do not see where it has been given this authority by the member municipalities,” he wrote.

A related question is whether the fire district has the authority to bind a member municipality financially to pay for designing and building a new fire station.

“For example, if the fire district enters into a design contract for $100,000, can it force its member municipalities to pay their share?” Dunst wrote.

At the April 13 meeting, members of the Boyceville Community Fire District board voted unanimously to move forward with sending out the Requests for Proposals.

The Five-year Capital Improvement and Planning Committee of the Boyceville Community Fire District will meet May 4 at 7 p.m. at the Boyceville village hall to discuss the process for sending out the Request for Proposals for the proposed fire hall.

The Boyceville Community Fire District will meet next May 11 at 6:30 p.m. at the Boyceville village hall.