California Surveyors Forums

I have three active surveys at the beach and in every single case, my monuments have been destroyed and there is no evidence they were tied out by the city prior to construction.

This is not good.

http://www.kusi.com/story/32083033/turk ... o-pin-down

welcome to the club. cities have absolutely no intent to preserve and the "Board" has no intent to enforce.

Govt will not go after their own. Their biggest excuse is "We don't have the money to comply", but they think the private sector has unlimited funds.

We need a way to pursue cost of replacement via small claims court.

We just recovered a CL int in a city in LA county down 0.7' That was not fun.

From my experiences, the cost of surveying services whether in house or contracted on public works projects, is a very small part of the project.

So, while I understand that the most common argument is that it is too expensive to tie the monuments that may be destroyed by the project, I don't buy it.

I have long sense advocated that placing responsibilities on the government agency or the contractor in the LS ACT is the wrong place for that. I also, think that survey monuments should be preserved regardless of what work or actions may destroy them. During many official discussions and 'offline' this is what I have communicated and what I think would be a good approach:
1.) Revise 8771 of the B&P to address what are the surveyor's responsibilities of when and how to tie out a monument that may be destroyed on projects they work on.
2.) In the Government code revise and replace existing language requiring that on any project they are constructing that all survey monuments shall be tied out by a licensed Land Surveyor per 8700 et. seq. of the B&P
3.) If the construction work is contracted then place a section in the Government Code that monies can be withheld from a contractor until the preservation of monuments has been complied with.
4.) If the Government agency 'accepts' the contract and the contractor did not comply with the preservation of monuments requirements then it becomes the responsibility of the Government agency to comply.
5.) Revise laws to have a statement in ALL permits that survey monuments shall be preserved by a person licensed to practice Land Surveying per blah, blah, blah.

From my perspective the current state of affairs relying on 8771 as written or marginally tweaked isn't working.

Also, I think the the people at the BPELSG work hard and are always talking about protecting the public. Maybe more direct communications with them on the harm to the public caused by not preserving survey monuments is in order.

I hope I didn't waste my time with this post.

I sent an exhaustive, detailed, documented, copies of maps, and photographic narrative to the Board before the television segment aired. Remember perhaps that I also had the Grand Jury side with me when they delivered a 15 page report,

Once again I have taken all the appropriate measures including expressing my concerns to everyone in as much detail as possible.

The board has been aware of this issue for some time as others have expressed their concerns.

http://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/d ... uments.pdf

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... ol9No7.pdf

Need to follow your local City Council agendas for award of resurfacing contracts and sign up to speak. Ask the Council where the contract line item is for monument perpetuation. Advise them that their Public Works Director or City Engineer signing the project specifications is violating State Law if he or she is allowing work to be performed that does not protect and/or restore existing survey monuments. I work for Los Angeles County and we take it seriously.

http://dpw.lacounty.gov/prg/pressroom/p ... type=PRESS

Monument Preservation is a pay item in our contract specifications. Excerpts from our Spec below

2-9 SURVEYING.

2-9.1 Permanent Survey Markers. Replace the first two sentences with the following:

The Contractor shall preserve survey monuments, lot corners or offsets, and benchmarks. The
Contractor shall file Corner Records or record a Record of Survey referencing survey monuments
subject to disturbance in the Office of the County Surveyor, Los Angeles County Department of
Public Works, Survey Division, 4th Floor, 900 S. Fremont Avenue, Alhambra, CA 91803, from 7 a.m. to
5 p.m. Monday through Thursday. A copy shall also be submitted to the Engineer.

Add the following:

Survey monument preservation and restoration shall conform to the Los Angeles County Code, Chapter
21.20, http://search.municode.com/html/16274/index.htm.

2-9.2 Survey Service. Replace the first sentence with the following:

The Contractor shall be responsible for the performance and accuracy of surveying adequate for
construction. The horizontal and vertical survey control shall be as shown on the Plans as
supplemented by survey information available from the office referenced above. Construction surveys
shall conform to the Caltrans Surveys Manual, Chapter 12,
www.dot.ca.gov/hq/row/landsurveys/SurveysManual/Manual TOG. html, except as otherwise specified
or so directed by the Engineer. The Contractor's surveyor shall attend the pre-construction meeting
with the Engineer and Agency personnel.

Add the following subsection:

2-9.5 Payment. Payment for survey monument preservation and restoration will be made at the lump
sum Bid price for "SURVEY MONUMENT PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION." Payment will not be made until
indexed copies of filed Corner Records, or a copy of a recorded Record of Survey, have been
submitted to the Engineer. Payment shall include research of record data, tying out monuments prior
to disturbance, re-establishment, preparation and submittal of Corner Records or a Record of
Survey to the County Surveyor, and all other associated and appurtenant work.

Dennis [subman],

I am currently the Interim City Surveyor for the second biggest city in LA County and the 7th largest in the state. We have the same language in our annual contracts. I am working to change it.

The problem? The first sentence :

"The Contractor shall..." .

Contractors are selected by the lowest responsible bid according to the public contract code. Professionals i.e. surveyors, engineers, architects are selected by the Qualification Based Selection system ("QBS"). These two methods of contracting shouldn't be mixed and matched. Low bid surveyors being responsible for monumentation with a third party (the contractor) in-between the owners and the surveyors? My experience is this is not the best arrangement and it subverts the QBS process, subverts the profession.

The Professional Land Surveyors' Act clearly states the "governmental agency" is responsible for the monument preservation. If it were me, I wouldn't trust my license status to the "lowest responsible bidder". Who is truly dismayed to find the monument preservation system isn't working in many jurisdictions? Tying out less monuments is one sure way to cut costs.

Many agencies have "on call" surveying contracts in which the surveyors were selected under a QBS process- the same is true for LA County and yet, we continue supporting the low bid surveyor system - which oftentimes rewards scofflaws and corner cutters - not to mention undermining our professional standing in the community. Many agency's annual contracts are set up on a unit cost system. For instance, if we pay $1 per foot of curb or $1 per yard of asphalt it includes survey. Having the QBS contract surveyors provide services, under the existing language, would mean the agency is paying twice for land surveying services.

Locally, I am proposing the new annual contracts have land surveying taken out of the unit costs and have the contractor provide an optional surveying cost - as a back up in the event our QBS folks cannot get the project completed in a timely manner. More ideally, I would like to see the city survey staff responsible for all monument preservation - few projects have more importance.

Bottom line, the language provided is unacceptable and does not comport with the QBS process.

Dennis, I will send you my proposed language with the idea we can work on new language together.

Qualification Based Selection is the law. The land surveying community, both sides of the counter, must insist that all agencies use this system.

DWoolley

subman wrote:......
Monument Preservation is a pay item in our contract specifications. Excerpts from our Spec below

.....The Contractor shall be responsible for the performance and accuracy of surveying adequate for
construction. ......

....2-9.5 Payment. Payment for survey monument preservation and restoration will be made at the lump
sum Bid price for "SURVEY MONUMENT PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION." ....

Subman,

Question:

Is the contractor who is bidding on, being awarded, and responsible for, the survey bid item; also a licensed surveyor and or owner of a business authorized by law to procure and produce land survey product?

Seems to me your way of doing business puts construction contractors in the awkward position of direct procurement and responsible charge of work they are not licensed for.