CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city has already started design contracts for the 22 street projects from the 2020 bond. This means the process is five months ahead of schedule.
City council authorized a new mass selection process to speed up projects that often took several years. These projects were often delayed due to lack of city staff to handle them.
City Manager Peter Zanoni said in the past the city regularly used contract employees to save on worker salaries.
“Before we had contract employees in this department that oversaw the bond program delivery,” Zanoni said. “We filled all positions with people and staff that report to the director and ultimately to me with better accountability. It's also a much better price point as well.”
City leaders had originally expected only 75 percent of the 2020 projects to be under design by now. However, the council has approved nine local engineering consultants to handle the work.
According to Zanoni the faster execution of the bond will mean significant cost savings to the taxpayer.