Action taken earlier this month allowed Buda to officially cut ties with ECM International, a professional project management firm which oversaw Propositions 1 and 2 of the 2014 Buda Bond projects.
Buda Mayor Todd Ruge said the decision came after weeks of deliberation by council members behind closed doors in executive session in which the city and ECM were in “dispute resolution” trying to work it out.
“We were trying to get on the same page with ECM and we felt we wanted to go in a different direction,” Ruge said.
During the same council meeting on Dec. 6, Buda city leaders tabbed Broaddus as the project management group that will take over the bond propositions.
Ruge said the city received bids from eight different companies that sought to take over the $24 million projects. The Buda City Council approved Broaddus by a unanimous vote.
Ruge said that even though ECM is no longer in the picture, HDR Engineering and Page Architects, firms originally hired by ECM, would work under Broaddus.
“We are very pleased moving forward since Broaddus actually came in second for the original bid,” Ruge said. “It was a unanimous decision to go with them.”
Ruge said that despite the difference in vision, there is no bad blood between ECM International and the city.
“I think they (ECM) handled themselves very professionally through the dispute resolution process and they are a very good firm. We just had different visions for the projects,” Ruge said.
Ruge also said that the dissolution of services through ECM for the 2014 Bond projects had no effect on its future prospects for working with the city of Buda.
“ECM is doing great work with the county and I don’t see any reason why we can’t work with them again in the future,” Ruge said.
