Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth will ask the City Council tonight to amend Benicia’s contract with Pakpour Consulting Group, Pleasanton, to change the type of staffing it provides.

Instead of Pakpour’s interim principal civil engineer services, the city needs its interim assistant Public Works director services more, Wadsworth wrote City Manager Brad Kilger on Feb. 27.

The continued staff augmentation would mean a $64,800 change to the contract, and that money is available in the Public Works Administration Contract Services Account, Wadsworth wrote.

The city originally contracted with Pakpour on Jan. 12 for up to $4,000 for the services of consulting civil engineer Steven Yee. The principal civil engineer position has been vacant since Nov. 24, 2014, Wadsworth wrote.

He wrote that Yee has been involved in developmental reviews, capital improvement projects, project coordination and document reviews, on projects that range from St. Augustine flood relief and the bus hub to the city’s vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan and Benicia Industrial Park’s transportation and employment center plan.

Not only is Yee able to perform tasks city employees don’t have the expertise or time to do, his cost is about 15 percent below similar positions at other firms, Wadsworth wrote.

Once the principal civil engineer’s position is filled, he wrote, he’d like to reassign Yee as the contract-interim assistant public works director, which was added by the Council to the General Fund personnel 2014-15 budget on Feb. 17.

Should the Council concur with Wadsworth’s request, Yee would help him manage water treatment, water quality, wastewater treatment and maintenance divisions operations, and develop a schedule for street resurfacing and underground utility projects.

He also would help with the utility rate study and the city water conservation program; assist in preparing the annual engineer’s report for the Landscape and Lighting Assessment districts; update the countywide bicycle plan; and work on other procedural and regulatory tasks.

If the Council approves the request, it would let Yee work eight-hour days for 12 five-day weeks, costing $135 an hour.

Wadsworth also will ask the Council to accept the East Second Street Overlay project, including a $16,599.32 change order.

The project resurfaced East Second Street from East O Street to Military East, East S Street to about 300 feet north of Corporation Yard and the eastern abutment of the East Second Street bridge over West Channel Road to the east of Reservoir Road in the Benicia Industrial Park.

The final cost, $598,816.22, is being picked up by a federal grant and Allied Waste fees. Acceptance of the project is needed so the contractor, MCK Services, Concord, can be paid, Wadsworth wrote.

In other business, Mayor Elizabeth Patterson will read a proclamation recognizing April as National Poetry Month and acknowledging the city’s poet laureate program, the First Tuesday Poet Group and various poetry contests, children’s programs, workshops and other events.

The Council will meet at 7 tonight in the Council Chamber of City Hall, 250 East L St.

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