Report of the Finance Committee Page 2
April 6, 2016
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Clemons
| am very familiar with the milfoiling and all of the exotic weeds that plague our state but | am wondering is this,
how long is this effective for because it looks like we did this a couple of years ago and the infestation is back
and from what | understand it really is never going to go away and | am wondering if we have looked into, or if
the state allows, there are different ways to treat this and one of them is by importing a bug called a milfoil
weevil and it actually eats all of the milfoil completely out of the lake or pond. In some cases it’s moderately
effective, in other cases it’s too effective and what it does is it will eat out all of the aquatic vegetation but in my
view | almost look at that as a better alternative because you can always restore a pond once it’s been
eliminated of its vegetation. | am wondering if this is just putting a band aid on a bigger problem and maybe
there are other solutions out there that we have not looked at.
Alderman Siegel
Just to address the question of is this effective, it’s not every two years and it has been recently effective. As
far as the milfoil bug, | am not so sure about that because we haven't discussed that before the Board of Public
Works. Typically the restrictions with the state won’t allow that. I'll try to bring that up before the Board of
Public Works next time but this has been effective and the one thing that’s not listed in here is water chestnut
mitigation and that’s been done by hand pulling and apparently is not only very effective but is free because it’s
been done by volunteers so that’s good news there.
MOTION CARRIED
From: Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Re: Purchase of Playground Structures for Labine Park (Value: $62,485)
MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AUTHORIZE THE PURCHASE
FROM M.E. O’BRIEN & SONS, INC. IN THE AMOUNT OF $62,485. SOURCE OF FUNDING IS
DEPARTMENT 184, URBAN PROGRAMS; CDBG FISCAL YEARS 2015 AND 2016 ($50,952); AND,
DEPARTMENT 177, PARKS AND RECREATION; PRIOR YEAR ESCROWS-LABINE PARK; 71,
STRUCTURES ($11,533)
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Wilshire
The M.E. O’Brien & Sons quote says that they are doing the installation of this equipment, is that correct?
Mr. Kooken
They are installing a portion of it; the more technical items are going to be installed and then there is going to
be a public day where they are going to install some of the remainder of the equipment.
Alderman Wilshire
The reason that | ask is because on their quote it says that the prices are not using prevailing wage rates
unless otherwise specified. If they are using CDBG funds then they have to use the Davis-Bacon Wage Act.
Mr. Kooken
| will have to follow-up on that as it has not been brought up and discussed previously.
