FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council on Monday considered selecting a construction manager and an owner’s representative for the proposed community center project.

City Administrator Cathy Reynolds shared that the Community Center Advisory Board has recommended that council hire an owner’s representative. She said that owner’s representative fees are usually one to two percent of construction costs.

Council member Randy Lubenow, who is also on the advisory board, said, “People that know me know that that I don’t like to waste money and I don’t think anything we would do with an owner’s rep would be wasting money.”

He said when you look at it there are two pockets of money, taxes from sales tax and private donations.

“This project has the potential to be $25, $30, $35 million,” Lubenow said.

He pointed out that the Public Works building took several years to plan and was a $10 million dollar project.

Lubenow said he feels confident that if there’s an owner’s rep, the community would be getting the best building for the best price.

At its meeting earlier this month, the Community Center Advisory Board had recommended that the city retain the services of an owner’s representative to assist with the planning and design for the facility.

The board also expressed a desire to directly negotiate with Tegra, as the company is already familiar with the project. At its last meeting the board asked Reynolds to get the city attorney’s opinion on if it can move forward with Tegra, or if a Request for Proposal is needed.

On Monday evening City Attorney Mark Rahrick said one advantage to putting out an RFP is that Tegra would also need to put forth their best proposal. However, Rahrick also said there’s no reason that Tegra can’t be negotiated with directly.

Council member Britney Kawecki spoke out in favor of an owner’s representative, saying no one on the council has enough experience with a project of this sort.

“I feel like the key to this project is the owner’s rep and that’s the only way that we should move forward,” Kawecki said.

She said that the advisory board has made their recommendation that they wish to move forward with Tegra and as a council, they typically go along with recommendations.

Reynolds asked the council to note that many of the responsibilities of an owner’s representative and a construction manager overlap.

“If that’s what council wants, that’s great, but it will put us with two layers of people doing a lot of the same work,” Reynolds said.

The council approved a motion, 4-1, with council member Wayne Hasek voting no, to move forward with negations for hiring Tegra as an owner’s representative for the project.

The council also considered selecting a construction manager for the project. The advisory board had previously put out RFPs and received responses from five

companies, which it went over at its last meeting.

“The advisory board did recommend moving forward with Kraus-Anderson for the construction manager,” said Reynolds.

Lubenow said he thinks members of the advisory board want to wait to do any type of contract with a construction manager until Tegra is on board.

“So we scrap this, for now?” asked council member Bruce Peters.

The council briefly discussed timelines on getting both an owner’s representative and a construction manager on board, but ultimately took no action on whether or not to select a construction manager at this time.

Moving to other matters, the council heard about a council member’s request for data. Reynolds asked if it was something that the council as a whole wanted to move forward with, as it would require additional staff time to look into the four requests.

Reynolds shared that she had concerns about one of the requests, asking for all emails between the city administrator and the city attorney, because confidential data regarding HR issues would be made public.

Kawecki, the council member who made the request, said that something was shared with her, which is why she requested to see all emails between city engineer Troy Nemmers and construction company RJM. She said she wanted to hear what Rahrick had to say about the request.

Rahrick said a council member is free to request information and should have access to information that is not public as they are part of the city.

“I don’t think an individual council member has the authority to pursue investigations. That, under the charter, is something the council as a whole can decide to do,” Rahrick said.

Mayor Deb Foster said she has concerns about where to draw the line with four requests from one council member. She asked at what point you can say no to some requests and yes to others.

“We’ve never been in this situation before as a council. We need to police each other and give staff clear direction on what’s acceptable and what isn’t,” said Foster.

Lubenow said that if someone feels that they have been wronged, or have concerns, they should come forward to the council.

Ultimately no action was taken following the discussion on request for data.

In other action, the council considered approving the rental housing ordinance. Most recently a work session was held on Nov. 17 in which the council and landlords discussed the proposed changes.

“Staff would recommend that council approves this ordinance,” Reynolds said, adding that it would go into effect on Feb. 1, 2022.

Lubenow made a motion to approve and Kawecki seconded. The council unanimously approved the ordinance.

In other news:

— The next regular council meeting will take place at 6 p.m. on Dec. 13.

— A joint work session will be held at 6 p.m. on Dec. 16 between the Fairmont City Council, Martin County Commissioners and Martin Soil and Water to discuss the chain of lakes watershed.The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will also be present. The work session will be televised.

— The Dec. 27 city council meeting has been cancelled.