Before the regular meeting of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners this morning, a public hearing was held in anticipation of spending an amount above $100,000 to hire a consulting firm for the King Springs Road Sidewalk project.

Cobb DOT Director Drew Raessler described the purpose of the hearing.

“King Springs Road Sidewalk is an eligible project under the sidewalk improvements component of the 2022 SPLOST Transportation Improvements Program and has been selected by the district commissioner for funding in accordance with state law,” Raessler said. “The board is required to conduct a public hearing prior to expending county funds of $100,000 or more to employ an independent consultant or consulting firm or to conduct an independent study or survey to implement the King Springs Road sidewalk project.”

“The department anticipates awarding an engineering design contract that could exceed $100,000. Therefore, the department recommends that the board of commissioners conduct a public hearing prior to spending $100,000 or more for engineering design services for the King Springs Road sidewalk, project number B2745.”

Raessler later said his department anticipates that the expenditure will be around $200,000.

During the public hearing three Cobb residents spoke. All three questioned why the engineering could not be performed by the Cobb DOT in-house.

Chairwoman Cupid asked Raessler to explain why outside contractors are utilized.

Raessler said within the Cobb DOT’s engineering section dozens of projects are being managed, “from drainage to sidewalk to traffic signals to widening new alignments.

He said that each project requires expertise, and that expertise can include surveying, geotechnical engineering bridge, structural engineering, hydraulic and hydrology analysis to determine the sizing of those roadway pipes, traffic engineers to determine both in the concept phase and then into design phase for traffic signals.

“By contracting it out,” he said, “we’re able to select those firms that have that expertise in-house, and our department is positioned more in a project manager position where we have about a half dozen project managers in-house.”

“Embedded consultants allow us to manage these design contracts to move them forward into construction as quickly as possible,” said Raessler.

Raessler said that this was not a traditional RFP (request for proposals). A traditional RFP would involve forming a selection committee to receive bids for the individual projects.

In this case a list of qualified firms were already selected in earlier stage of developing the 2022 SPLOST list under master task order contracts.

“In the case of these task orders, what we do is try to make sure each of those master task order contractors has the opportunity to do work,” Raessler said. He said the work is distributed among contractors on the list who were already chosen earlier in the process.

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