GLENDALE CITY COUNCIL MEETING PREVIEW

MASS NOTIFICATION

The City Council on Tuesday will consider implementing a new mass communication system through Glendale Water & Power that would be able to send notifications to much of the city within minutes.

The system, at a three-year cost of $261,798, would have the ability to send communiques to tens of thousands of Glendale residents at once via phone, fax or e-mail.

Police, fire and other departments would also be able to take advantage of the system or emergency and nonemergency notifications.

Glendale Water & Power’s customer database would be used to upload the contact rolls. Sensitive customer information would be encrypted and protected using security software. Initially, only telephone land lines would be used, but as the system is tested and becomes fully operational, residents would have the opportunity to list additional contact methods. They would also have the ability to screen types of contacts, such as emergency notifications only.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Given repeated complaints from residents over poor notification from the city regarding community issues and development projects, the City Council may opt to employ the mass communication technology, although outside contracts have come under greater scrutiny amid the tough fiscal atmosphere.

ROAD PROJECT BID REJECTIONS

The City Council will consider putting a project to reconstruct a portion of flood-damaged Greenwich Road out to bid again after the first proposals were determined to be either inadequate or too expensive.

A short bend in Greenwich Road was severely damaged by the torrential rains of 2005, creating an estimated $100,000 in needed repairs that the Federal Emergency Management Agency pledged to cover.

But of the eight companies that submitted bids for the project, six estimated their contracts at between $25,000 and $164,000 above the city’s estimate. The two companies with bids lower than $100,000 had either inaccurate or inadequate information in their submissions.

Public Works officials will recommend Tuesday that the City Council authorize the city to reissue the project to solicit another round of bids.

WHAT TO EXPECT

The council will likely authorize the renewed bidding process, especially since nearly all recent construction projects through the city have attracted bids that are about 10% to 15% below the city engineer’s estimate.

NEW POWER SUBSTATION

Glendale Water & Power, in an effort to back up the power supply to the northern part of the city, will send a request to the City Council on Tuesday to start soliciting proposals from outside firms to reconstruct a power substation, a project estimated at roughly $11 million.

The Glorietta Substation in north Glendale currently receives power from the Montrose Substation at a higher voltage than it can distribute to customers. Power officials have been concerned that, in the event of a catastrophic event, the two substations would be unable to back each other up since they run on different systems, cutting the northern part of the city off to the electrical grid.

After spending millions to convert much of the infrastructure between the two stations to be compatible, all that remains is reconstructing the Glorietta station to receive power at the same voltage of the Montrose station.

The reconstruction is expected to cost about $11 million.

WHAT TO EXPECT

The council will likely approve the request to solicit proposals from pre-qualified contractors, since it is only the first step in the bidding process.