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On July 21, 2015, City Council awarded Cleary Brothers Landscape, Inc. the construction contract for a total amount of $888,032.52 that included the base bid along with Additive Bid 1 and Additive Bid 2. Cleary Brothers bid for Additive Bid 3 was $349,678.50. If the City desires to install the Additive Bid 3 work at this time, Cleary Brothers have submitted a letter confirming that they will perform the Additive Bid 3 work for the original bid amount of$349,678.50. DISCUSSION Additive Bid 3 includes the irrigation system and plantings in the loop area of the southbound 1-680 off ramp, along the northbound on ramp, on both sides of Bernal Avenue east and west of the freeway overpass bridge, and in the median west of the overpass bridge. (The median east of the bridge includes the monument sign and the plantings in the median that were included in the July 21, 2015 contract award, Additive 2). The irrigation and plantings included in Additive Bid 3 are all low water use drought tolerant plants. Furthermore, the irrigation plan and the planting plan both conform to the State of California Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (WELO) that was updated in 2015. In short, the irrigation and planting plans are a model of how landscaping will be done into the future in large part due to lessons learned by the recent drought. It is understood that on July 21, 2015, the City Council decided that Additive Bid 3 would not be included in the project because of the drought. Although it is not clear the drought is over, there has been more than "normal" rain and snowfall to this point in the winter. Therefore staff is presenting this issue to the City Council again for consideration. Since this project installs drought tolerant plantings, is designed to the current WELO standards, is funded by developer funds, and has been approved by Caltrans for installation, staff is recommending the Additive Bid 3 irrigation and planting be installed at this time. This will complete the landscape project and make this a very attractive entryway into the City. The alternative is to leave this area as unimproved and bid the irrigation and landscape work as a separate project in the future. However this could jeopardize Caltrans approval, perhaps jeopardize the developer funding contribution, and will likely cost more as the administration, bonding, insurance, etc, would then be required for another project. Additive Bid 3 includes 7,087 five-gallon size shrubs and 253 one-gallon size ground cover plants. Not only will these larger size plants be attractive as soon as planted, but due to their age relative to smaller plantings, these larger plants will also require less irrigation compared to smaller plants. Finally, although not directly related to the landscape project, the section of Bernal Avenue between Valley Avenue and Foothill will be repaved during the summer of 2016. When the landscaping and paving work is complete, this area will get relief from Page 3 of 4