Title
Oak Lawn Water Negotiation Contract Authorization
History
Beginning in August 2009, the Village began engaging three (3) different consultants for professional services related to due diligence review and the negotiations for contract renewal with Oak Lawn for water supply. The three (3) consultants and the amount approved are as follows:
WRB,LLC $196,000
Malcolm Pirnie Engineering $120,000
Holland & Knight $207,500
Total $523,500
Of the amount listed above, the Village is responsible for 33% of the expense. The remaining 67% is paid for by Mokena (10%), New Lenox (18%), Oak Forest (11 %) and Tinley Park (28%). The Village of Tinley Park acts as the administrator of the contract. To date, we have made substantial progress with Oak Lawn and are hopeful of completing the negotiations this year. By way of background, the collective work of our combined approach has generated very positive results. Specifically, the draft contract language now includes consent approval from member communities before certain expenses are made by Oak Lawn, review and input into operational issues, the provision and maintenance of an Asset Management Plan and Most Favored Nations clause in the event that any other town receives a better rate from Oak Lawn. In total, there were over 150 issues raised with the contract. Today, the universe of open items is less than 25, the majority of which are rate related. Throughout this process, Oak Lawn has been a good partner in terms of providing our community with the necessary details to negotiate with all the information on the table.
At this time, Oak Lawn has received initial approval from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (a possible funding source), to commence with bidding of the first stage of improvements. This would include approximately $10 million of pump improvements at the Hacker plant. In total, the overall value of improvements to the system for all eleven communities is approximately $160,000, ...
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