Staff Blamed for Overpayment on Riverbed Cleanup : Ventura: California Land Clearing was awarded an emergency contract for $177,745. But it did the work for less than $58,000.

Ventura city staff members erred when they awarded a $177,000 contract to a company that was able to clean out the Ventura River bottom for about one-third of that cost, the city manager said Monday.

In a report at Monday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Donna Landeros acknowledged that an associate city engineer overestimated the cost of the river bottom cleanup in her initial analysis.

“The contract was seriously miscalculated,” Landeros said. “We were working at the time with the threat of flooding and trying to move ahead as quickly as possible.”

Last month, the council authorized Landeros to award a contract to clear the riverbed of tons of debris left behind by the January and March rainstorms.

The contract was negotiated under an emergency provision that allowed city officials to avoid the two-month process usually required to advertise and award most public contracts.

But associate city engineer Marquita Ellias estimated that the cleanup job would cost about $189,000, and Landeros subsequently awarded a contract to California Land Clearing for $177,745.

The Ventura land-clearing firm, however, was actually able to do the work for less than $58,000, according to estimates prepared by Ellias based on payroll and other documents provided by the company.

In awarding the job to California Land Clearing, city officials rejected another bid from a Fillmore-based contractor who offered to do the cleanup for $28,000.

Jack Saunders, who submitted the only other offer for the riverbed work, said $58,000 was more than it should have cost to clear the river of shopping carts, tarpaulins and other leftovers from the homeless encampments washed away in winter floods.

Saunders said he could have done the work for $28,000. Monday night, he suggested the city engineer “sharpen her pencil and quit fantasizing.”

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Assistant City Atty. Michael Dougherty said it appeared there is little they could do to avoid the overpayment.

“The way I understand the situation, you have no options,” said Dougherty, referring to the lump-sum agreement that was not based on time or materials. “You’ve already paid the money.”

California Land Clearing already has received the $177,745, Landeros said Monday.

Councilman Jim Monahan, the only council member to oppose allowing Landeros to award the contract on her own, said the total cleanup should have cost around $50,000.

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But the council voted 6 to 1 to authorize Landeros to award the contract to California Land Clearing, which submitted the larger of two bids.

On Monday, Monahan criticized his colleagues for allowing city officials to rush through the $177,000 deal.

“I should have been taken a little more seriously when I first raised the question,” he said.

While council members Jack Tingstrom and Rosa Lee Measures defended the work performed by California Land Cleaning and its $177,000 cost, Councilman Steve Bennett issued a public apology to Ventura taxpayers.

“My gut told me there was something wrong with that number, and I didn’t follow that,” he said. “We blew it. We need to say we blew it and go on.”

Councilman Gary Tuttle called on California Land Clearing to reimburse the city a portion of its $120,000 profit.

“I expect them to come forward and make it right,” Tuttle said. “I don’t think we need to apologize to them.”