City Consultant Cashes In

Menlo Park's City Council approved an additional payment to the consultant firm Perkins + Will to do further analysis for the city’s El Camino Real/ Downtown Specific Plan.

City staff asked Council to allocate more funds for the project Tuesday, after it became clear the firm needed to do more work to address feedback received from residents on the plan's Environmental Impact Report.

The consultant firm’s initial fee quote of $933,950 was based on the amount of work that it took them to complete similar projects in other cities, said Thomas Rogers, Associate Planner for the City of Menlo Park. Council approved this in December of 2008.

From June 2009-, the city shelled out an additional $56,460 for “supplements” that include attendance at Planning Commission and City Council Meetings ($10,000) and a water supply assessment ($27,000), according to a staff report prepared for the City Council’s Dec 13 meeting.

The is a document that will outline future land use regulations, such as what type of businesses can operate in specific areas of town and how tall they can be. City staff and consultants have been working on it for four years and are in Phase two of the plan. They hope the document can be used for the next 20 to 30 years.

Richard Draeger, of ., said the plan has morphed into one that is much larger than anyone originally anticipated. Draeger was not pleased with the idea of allocating more funds for consultants.

“Consultants should be taking responsibility for their poor advice and not taking advantage of the largesse of Menlo Park taxpayers,” Draeger said.

Other Menlo Park residents such as Patti Fry, said the original estimate was valid.

“We are an involved community, perhaps more so than others,” Fry said.  “Perhaps if they had done their homework they would have known,” she added, noting that she used to be a consultant herself.

Phase one of the project is called the the Downtown Vision Plan. Phase one cost the city $136,500 for outreach, meeting documents and other contingencies, according to city staff report 11-211. It was done by consultant firm Design, Community, and Environment.

Council Member Andy Cohen said he talked to one of the phase one consultants and asked whether him if DCE would be willing to offer a competing bid for the job. Cohen said he was told DCE would be able to do the job for less than $100,000.

Thomas Rogers said he had no indication that other firms would be interested in taking over the work of another firm, and that if that were to take place it would be a minimum of two months before he could have a bid in his hand, given the process required.

The $225,980 approved Tuesday will fund analysis and studies, a revised illustrative plan, revised renderings for sections of El Camino Real, and sub-consultant work.