The Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District has talked about an interest of piggybacking on the feasibility study being performed by the engineering firm Eisman & Russo on behalf of St. Johns County in conjunction with the sidewalk feasibility project on San Juan Drive.
The project currently plans to go along San Juan Drive from Solana Road to Ponte Vedra Boulevard, and the MSD has discussed its intentions to possibly build off what is in place and extend the project.
According to trustee Mickey White, the board was thinking it would be a perfect time to plan and extension of the feasibility using Eisman & Russo since they would already be in the process of the study.
However, White informed the board that there has been an issue that has popped up that may not make that as easy as it sounded due to the procurement process in place.
“My understanding with public procurement is that we would say ‘If you add this $70,000 worth of scope to Eisman & Russo’s study, we would fund that and they would just increase the scope of that consultant,’” White said. “However, when I brought it back to them and was all happy because we are going to figure out drainage before we build a sidewalk, there was a lot of red tape discussion.”
White has followed up with the county in an attempt to get the procurement department to understand the situation at hand and how the MSD believes this is the best course of action for everyone involved to allow the board’s request for an extension of the study’s scope.
MSD attorney Wayne Flowers suggested allowing him to contact the county’s attorney’s office and see if something could be worked out that way.
According to Flowers, piggybacking on the county contract is something that the MSD is permitted to do, but the county’s position could be that it is something that has to be done through a separate solicitation.
“The question becomes are they willing to do that, and will they do that,” Flowers said.
Since the MSD approved the sidewalk project for San Juan Drive, there has been at least a couple of people who routinely come to the meetings to see how the progress is coming along.
“I was really excited to get an action item going moving forward as it relates to drainage feasibility and sidewalks, but I hit a little bit of a bureaucratic roadblock here,” White said. “Wayne and I will keep following up on this and try to get back on an efficient path.”
According to White, if the MSD is unable to extend the scope of the current study, it will only lead to a delay the process and could slow down the plans that the board had in mind for the community.
