Board approves surveys and hires design engineer to advance North Tapps turf project amid health and process concerns

The Dieringer School Board voted to move ahead with key procurement steps for a proposed turf field at North Tapps Middle School, approving AHBL to perform topographic and wetland surveys and authorizing DA Hogan to serve as design engineer and general-contractor lead for project development.

During the operations update, the district’s operations lead (speaker 3) summarized four survey proposals: TruePoint (topo only, $8,800), Facet (wetland only, about $6,000), PACE (topo+wetland, about $32,850) and AHBL (topo+wetland; detailed scope and a price roughly $5,800 lower than PACE). The operations lead recommended AHBL because of a detailed scope and prior local experience. “My recommendation is that we contract with AHBL to do the topo and the wetland survey,” the operations presenter said.

Board members questioned scope, pricing differences and vendor responsiveness; some urged gathering additional details before finalizing vendors, while others favored moving forward to keep the project on schedule. The board moved and approved the AHBL survey contract by voice vote.

Separately the board approved contracting DA Hogan as the design engineer for the turf project. Board discussion described DA Hogan’s planned role to produce a full bid package, oversee permitting and bidding and recommend installation approaches; the presentation included a project-level estimate of roughly $4.2 million for construction and a DA Hogan fee cited in the materials of about $932,000. One board member voiced opposition at the DA Hogan vote citing concern about unknowns and the need for tighter process controls, but the motion passed.

At closing the board reiterated that the wetland portion of the surveys is particularly important for permitting and screening reviews and that additional clarifications about scope and schedule will be finalized before contracting work proceeds.

The board did not adopt final construction contracts at the meeting; the votes authorized design and survey work to prepare bid documents and permits.