Council reviews PBS contract to close city-hall remediation; members ask for confidentiality and prevailing-wage protections

City staff presented an agenda item on Feb. 19 to authorize work by consultant PBS to complete inspections and close out remediation activities at the former city-hall contamination site. Staff said prior remediation removed contaminated soil, installed a vapor-management system (VMS) and submitted a site-characterization report to Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department and the Department of Ecology.

Community Development Director Kim Gunderson told council the outstanding step was inspection and testing of the VMS to secure the health department’s clearance and to obtain a variance allowing the city to discontinue UST (underground storage tank) permit obligations. PBS will prepare a work plan and testing protocol to meet agency requirements; staff recommended authorizing a contract to complete that work.

Councilmembers raised two contract-language concerns. Councilmember Sprowl asked PBS not to use the city’s name or logo in marketing materials without the city’s written permission and requested a change to the contract’s confidentiality clause. He also raised concerns about a prevailing-wage clause that refers to the Davis–Bacon Act and an open-ended adjustment clause that could expose the city to future claims if federal or state wage rules change.

Staff acknowledged the concerns and offered to instruct PBS to remove or restrict logo use and to seek contract language clarifying prevailing-wage obligations tied to the project’s funding and bid dates. Councilmembers indicated they would move the item on consent with corrections to the contract language.

What happens next: staff will instruct PBS to revise contract terms to prohibit unapproved logo use and to provide guarded language or time-limited provisions addressing prevailing-wage exposure; the item will return on the consent agenda for formal authorization.