Fuel deal a trial run for Yuma

City awards contract to outside vendor

As Yuma moves toward privatizing its fuel services, staff will be keeping a close eye on the bottom line for the next couple of years.

City Administrator Greg Wilkinson noted that this will be a test period that will determine whether the city will continue working with an outside fuel vendor or go back to an internal fuel storage system.

On Wednesday, with a 6-0 vote, the city council awarded a oneyear contract for offsite fuel card services to Sellers Petroleum of Yuma. The contract is renewable for four additional one-year periods.

The city budgeted $800,000 for this expense for fiscal year 201718. During a Tuesday work session, Deputy Mayor Gary Knight asked how this year’s budgeted amount compared to the typical annual expenditure for fuel.

“Are we saving money by going with an outside vendor and not storing the fuel? I know we’re going to save money on no storage tanks, that’s the big savings,” Knight said.

Public Works Director Joel Olea noted that the main reason why the city is going to an outside vendor “is simply because the current tanks that we have now are out of warranty. This gives us an opportunity to see if there is going be cost-savings associated with moving to an outside vendor.”

The city has operated a fueling facility at the Fleet Maintenance Facility, but those underground storage tanks are about 32 years old and will be removed this year.

In addition, Olea said, the city will be building a new Fleet Maintenance Facility, but replacement of the fuel facility is not part of the first phase of the construction

project.

“This gives us two to three years to evaluate how this works out for us, whether we go back to having internal fuel tanks or not,” Wilkinson said.

Councilman Edward Thomas asked whether staff would have access to fuel 24/7. Olea responded that yes, a card lock system would allow vehicles to be fueled 24 hours every day of the year.

A staff report noted that the city requested proposals from vendors for offsite fuel card automated fueling services. Sites are required to be open 24 hours every day of the year. The sites should be stand-alone, useroriented, fully automated self-serve systems, capable of servicing the variety of sizes and fuel needs of the city’s vehicle fleet.

The offsite fueling system will provide accurate and real-time data, while accounting for all fuel being dispensed, the report said.

The city received proposals from three companies: Sellers, Boyett Petroleum of Modesto, Calif., and Shell Oil Products of Anaheim, Calif. The evaluation committee, comprised of city staff, reviewed and rated

the proposals received, based on a scoring matrix provided to each firm with the Request for Proposals.

In other action, the city approved a corrected final plat for the Pro-Med Subdivision. The property is located at the northwest corner of 24th Street and Ridgeview Drive. The applicant is Pro-Med of Yuma LLC.

According to a staff report, at a Feb. 1 regular meeting, the council approved the final plat for the Pro-Med Subdivision, which included the existing Pro-Med building, as well as the new vacant parcels that will be developed in the future.

The actual Pro-Med building was platted and developed more than 10 years ago and has now been sold to an out-of-state real estate investment firm. By law, the final plat now needs to be corrected to show the new, vacant subdivision parcels without the existing Pro-Med building so it may be accepted by the Yuma County Assessor.

Approval of this motion corrected the subdivision final plat for recording and acceptance by the Yuma County Assessor. The corrected final plat will be subject to the same conditions of approval set on Feb. 1 but will not include the existing Pro-Med building.