Finance — 01/06/15 Page 5
MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND AWARD THE CONTRACT TO
ELECTRONIC ENVIRONMENTS CORPORATION IN THE AMOUNT OF $392,817. SOURCE OF FUNDING
IS THE NASHUA POLICE DEPARTMENT; PRIOR YEAR ESCROW ($270,500) AND HOMELAND
SECURITY (EMPG) GRANT ($122,317)
ON THE QUESTION
Alderman Siegel
| want to clarify a whole lot of things about this purchase. Mr. Teeboom made a variety of statements. | was at
the meeting and I’ve researched the contract itself. There have been some misstatements shall we say. The
information regarding the additional cost has been provided to all of the members of the Finance Committee
and it was provided at that meeting to Mr. Teeboom and myself. We discussed it at length. Mr. Teeboom at
that time indicated that he understood the additional $100,000 and where it came from and the additional cost
from 400 kilowatts to 500 kilowatts was outlined explicitly at that meeting. He didn’t come up with it on his own
in some revelation. It was $11,000 in additional costs for a 100 kilowatt difference. I’ve seen Mr. Teeboom’s
documents which is the same thing that he has handed to us this evening. | believe that was sent via e-mail to
each member of the committee also. This omits significant portions of the contract that we have before us
including an entire secondary transfer switch and all of the associated work that is done with that. | reviewed
that contract and had some significant questions last time and Mayor Lozeau was kind enough to arrange for a
meeting that | attended with police staff, Justin Kates, the consultant that did the work and Mr. Teeboom was
invited and attended. The specific question that | had at the time with the additional cost was how was the
additional spec arrived at, why did we go from 400 kilowatts to 500 kilowatts and what was the thinking behind
that and where were the costs that came out of that. The actual process by which this happened | will explain
forthwith so there is clarification both for the Finance Committee and the public record. The generator was
initially specked at 400 kilowatts because that was what was there and the police department not only never
tried to be an expert at specking generators, they explicitly acknowledged they were not experts which is why
we had a consultant do that work which was clearly an intelligent thing to do. The 400 kilowatts was based on
what was there. The consultant did a 22-month measurement. They got the records from PSNH and the peak
power consumption was up above 350 kilowatts and by code you need to have 25% head room above
whatever your measured peak is so right then and there we are above 400 kilowatts just to meet code
requirements. This is even without any allowance for growth in the police department facility. The next step up
in generators is 500 kilowatts and that was $11,000 for that infrastructure and the associated additional costs
were the switching infrastructure to handle that because clearly there is more energy being transferred and
that’s an important consideration. At the time of the meeting we went through these costs and Mr. Teeboom
expressed that he understood where those costs came from and why and that wasn’t an issue and he even
specifically said that. Unfortunately, | believe that Mr. Teeboom has been excellent at providing data but it
would be nice if he were as good at inputting data. That information was available to us and it was given to my
satisfaction. The other issue that | brought up was the lack of clarification about what would happen with the
transfer switch. There is an electrical characteristic about the switches flopping around and the consultant was
there and explained exactly how that was derived. It was my understanding that it was based on a misread of
the way the spec was written. It turns out that it’s not going to flop around every 2 seconds, its 8 % seconds
which is well within spec. The other question | had was about the power level dropping below 90% and
potentially causing an issue with the motors; 85% is the industry standard and that’s where we are at and
should we want additional protection on the motors then we have the option to do that, if we believe that it will
be an issue. | felt that reading this contract and looking at the specification and all the costs are specified, we
have documents in front of us; this document that you have been made aware of that’s available which outlines
every single thing that we are purchasing and as an electrical engineer | can tell you that the consultant was
very helpful and | must say he was helpful despite Mr. Teeboom’s incessant badgering which | thought was
unfair. | will say that | would recommend that we do purchase this as it has been thoroughly vetted and all
questions at least that | had have been answered. | believe this is a wise purchase and a necessary purchase
for our police department.
