Police department overruns on the training facility take up most of the time . . . and probably will again at the council.
Public Comment
Pete Ostlind from Capitol Neighborhoods. wanted to speak when his item came up. The Mayor explained that was not how they do it at Board of Estimates (only committee to do it this way, I hope that changes). Ostlind explained he was with the Capitol Neighborhoods Development Committee and was there to speak on item 13, the Development Review Process. He isn’t sure how BOE will consider this, there are specific items for several of the commissions, but he points out that Urban Design Commission, Landmarks and Plan Commission have all made comments and recommendations and they agree with them. F1 on page 29 is eliminating overlapping jurisdictions, particularly Urban Design and Landmarks and Plan Commission and Urban Design. Typically these these committees have different ordinance and standards for review so the commissions did not think that was an effective goal they could follow through on. F2, the supermajority, Plan Commission and Landmarks recommended eliminating it and they concur with that. Pages 31 – 33 you find G 7e, G8e and G9. These are the three major committees eliminating referral as an option for the committees. They don’t think it is an effective recommendation and actually could be counterproductive to the process, in that it provides opportunity for proposals that are not quite ready to take a few extra weeks to get done instead of rejection. Plan Commission rewrote it, they concur with that. Limiting it to one referral might be inappropriate. G10 allows referral only when the applicant requests it. They don’t think it is effective, or efficient and problematic as to how it would be implemented. Plan Commission has the public comment and close the hearing then they discuss and if during the discussion the applicant senses that they might reject it, is he in the background waving his arms and asking for a referral instead. That doesn’t make for good decisions. G8g is one of two places where facade grants come up and say they don’t have to go to Urban Design. Their sense is that when public money is being spent on areas that specifically are intended to enhance the Urban environment, that is specifically what Urban Design is for and they should be part of that. He can answer other questions on comments they previously submitted. The mayor says they can call him back when the item comes up.
He says Marianne Mornton (from Commonwealth Development) is there to answer questions on item 8. He says they can ask her questions when they get there.
Mark Clear says the 5 of the 6 newly elected alders are with them this evening observing and they started orientation today.
Items 1 – 10
Clear moves items 1- 3. No comments or questions, passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote. They were personnel items.
Clear moves items 4 & 5, they are Metro agreements with Edgewood and Dane County. Passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote.
Clear moves item 6 with an amendment adding “and approved” after reviewed under the “now therefore be it resoelved” clause. No discussion, passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote.
Clear moves item 7, fire prevention grant, passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote.
Clear moves item 8, public market, passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote.
Clear moves item 9, 2nd substitute on Sustainability project on E Washington. Passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote.
Clear moves item 10, sole source purchase of driving simulator for police department. Passes unanimously without discussion on a voice vote. Clear makes jokes, jokes off camera. No substantive discussion, passes unanimously on a voice vote.
Police Training Facility questions
Clear moves item 11, the police training facility.
Satya Rhodes-Conway has a question.
Chief Noble Wray brings up Assistant Chief Davenport who started the project, Assistant Chief Randy Gaber who is working on it now, the training captain as well as Jim Whitman, Kerry Shuman (sp?), they brought everyone because of the short turn around.
Rhodes-Conway asked what changed, for the benefit of the new alders and viewing audience, because everyone on the Board of Estimates had individual conversations with the police department (effective way to do things, eh?).
Chief Wray says that a little over a week ago the bids came in and construction costs exceeded what they thought and they have to replace the roof, it is $175,000 and construction costs went up 17% due to fuel costs which means they need $470,000. They reallocated some money by putting off some projects in the police department budget (rounding errors in their department) of $75K. So that brought it to 397K for phase one. Captain Willilams can talk about the phases. That is what is being requested.
Susan Williams reminds them why it is important to have the training center. Having everyone in one place helped them become more efficient. It reduces the number of days it needs to do trainings. They can also train 24 hours a day. Right now they have hours at the Dane County Shooting range. They can hold multiple types of training at the same time. They can do pre-service, in-service and specialized training. They have better oversight of the training staff. Sometimes they are in up to 6 different locations. There is cost savings in renting the range. They will have classroom space for the academy, other city department and law enforcement agencies can use it and they can do community education. The citizens academy (waste of money) could be done there. Specialized training can be in one facility. They have a “beautiful” big parking lot, which can be used for crowd management trainings. The driving simulator will be used by police department and other city departments. They will provide space this year, but it won’t have its own room until 2012. They can do revenue producing trainings and rent space. They will have fuel savings from reduced travel. They can host national conferences and less officer time and travel. They can collaborate with fellow law enforcement trainings.
Rhodes-Conway asks about the phasing.
Williams says they occupy the office areas now. They have a small pre-service academy now and they are doing that there. They hope to finish phase one, the two classrooms, bathrooms and new indoor range. There is no indoor range, closest one is Blackhawk Tech in Janesville. They do send pre-service trainees there for no-light, low light training.
Wray asks Randy Gaber to talk about the range and interest by other departments.
Gaber says that low-light and no-light training, 80% of officer shooting occur in those circumstances and that is why the range is needed. They did reach out to partners to find out their training needs, to see if they would pay for the space. The response has been overwhelming. They all have to go to Janesville too. They are looking at on shift training, to take time out from their beats. There will be less travel time and they get to train with the Madison Police Department which is very desirable.
Williams says that they decided what to phase by looking at the biggest needs. The range is one, the classroom is better. Having the training in the hallways only moderately meets their needs. They have an academy every year and they need better space. The other space is for in-service and renting out the space. When both classrooms are not being used they can be leased as one or two rooms. The bathrooms are for the classrooms. There is space for lockers because of fitness training in pre-service. The mechanicals are coming off the roof and will be above the bathrooms. They are more energy efficient and getting LEED points for that. The unpredicted item is the leaky roof. That has to be fixed first.
Rhodes-Conway apologizes for the long answers, but asks about the cost savings and rent savings, can you quantify that.
Williams says range is $36K and that went up 3% and they don’t know what they would end up paying if they negotiated that. She says without the classrooms, they can’t go back to the other facility, at MATC that was $58K per year. They were coming back with a new fee structure, that was going to quadruple their charges. No figures on the fuel savings, but they estimate that they can create $125,000 annually for 50% rental of classrooms and 25% rental of the range. They can also make $35K on the trainings. (And we’ll see that reduction in next year’s budget, right? right.) That is $160K to offset costs of running the facility.
Rhodes-Conway says the numbers were for other phases, what is left out.
Williams, auditorium and computer lab. That is in phase 2. She says that when Oshkosh built theirs, the auditorium was filled every day.
Clear says that we are significantly committed to the facility and there would be huge costs and scrambling if they did not approve it. What would they do it that happens. Where can they cut back or what is the contingency plan?
Williams says that if can’t move forward as planned, she is working with Jim Whitney, they would have to reject the bid and start over on square one. Redesign it. It would add costs for that. The bid process costs would be duplicated. She was told that one larger project is better than multiple smaller projects. They would be back to square one. Instead of the range being ready on January 1 and classroom by May 2012. It would push the timeline out to August in 2012, they wouldn’t be able to lease out the facility to offset operating costs, they’d have to do it over and the contractors saying no end in sight as to cost of materials and fuels. They are expecting monthly increases. They might still have to come back for more.
Clear asks about the roof, we only owned it for a year, it was a surprise, do we have recourse with the previous owner, they should have disclosed any defects in the building.
Don Marx from Real Estate says they did an inspection, Jim Whitney was there, a contractor was there, at the time we did not see any issues with the roof. Perhaps they should have been out there when it was raining.
Clear asks if the previous owner disclosed anything.
Marx says that he would have to check with the city attorney about what they disclosed.
Williams said they never were told about a leaking roof.
Clear says this is a biggie. Is this a new problem?
Marx says he doesn’t know how they could tell that.
Judy Compton’s mic was off so I missed some, she talks about residential disclosures and “I am aware” . . . but this is a commercial building. It’s hard to imagine they didn’t know, a little leak, its like a mouse, if you have one there are more.
Marx says the owner wasn’t using the building, they were leasing it to another company. It is possible they did not know.
Williams says they looked into repairing it, but the contractor said that there would be no warranty and they could have more problems. That didn’t seem to be a good option.
Mike Verveer thanks them for talking to them individually like they did with all his colleagues. He asks about the bidding process, there seemed to be 5 bids, were any rejected for ordinance issues.
Jeanne Hoffman says one was rejected for not meeting SBE, she says the Rob Phillips can speak to that.
Rob Phillips says that Bower, Rather Builders Inc. was non-responsive for SBE reasons, but Joe Daniels was still lowest.
Verveer asks why it came in so far over besides fuel costs, this bodes poorly for the library.
Hoffman says it bodes poorly for many projects. She says this is a major project, we’re converting manufacturing space to offices and classrooms. There are a lot of materials involved and when the costs were over the architects estimates Jim Whitney and the police staff had a meeting and sat down with Joe Daniels and went through the bid. It was material pricing directly related to fuel prices. When you are approaching $4 at the pump, it will have pricing impacts on all kinds of commodities.
Verveer asks about the alternates that they include.
Williams says rubber flooring around the areas not in the range, but the hallways, it is flooring Jim Whitney recommended to protect the building over time. It would be more operating costs over time. The floor protects that area. The other alternate is ceramic tile for water splash protection on the walls.
Verveer asks about the $75K and what won’t get done.
Terri Genin says that facilities met with East, North and West to look at their budgets. They might be over in North, but they had money left over from 2010 to cover that. West and East might come in under. West can delay the carpeting if necessary.
Verveer asks if there was any other capital projects in the budget?
Genin says there were but they were federally funded.
Verveer asks if they briefed the mayor-elect.
Wray says this morning, very briefly.
Verveer asks if there were any concerns about moving forward.
Wray says he did not get any indications . . . that is probably better suited for him.
Verveer says that was an unfair question. But obviously he will be presiding at the council when we need the 15 votes for this.
Verveer asks the comptroller about the additional borrowing, are there any capitol budget projects that we won’t be borrowing for.
Dean Brasser says they don’t know of any at this point.
Joe Clausius wants to know about $75K what will they be short on, what was that for.
Terri Genin says it was carpet and paint at West, they can cover what they need to do. At East it was the parking lot striping and paving and they can use the funding they have.
Clausius says there were no major equipment issues, Genin says no.
Compton asks why we can’t hold people to their bids, why not take the bids and have a contract and have them perform at the amount in the contract. She doesn’t know any place where they don’t meet the costs, why do we continuously end up like this.
Rob Phillips (takes the bullet). The contractor did submit a bid, it was over the budget for the project, they will complete the project for the cost of that bid unless there are changes in scope or plans in which case there could be a slight change. Unfortunately, the bid is over the estimates.
Compton says signed on the bottom line and they won’t come back with more costs?
Phillips says it would be standard practice within the industry to include within the funding 8% contingency, that should cover the change orders.
Compton asks if it could be less.
Phillips says it could also be more, but in most cases that is adequate to cover the changes.
Compton (who I might add won’t be voting on this), asks if it would be proper to approve for the amount less 8%. She says that she wouldn’t give you a hundred dollars for something that costs $80 and then oops it is going to be 100 because we already agreed to do it. (8% = $80??)
Phillips says the standard is to have the contingency, in a remodeling project, with an addition, those are the toughest type of project to deal with the unknowns. It is important to have a contingency to deal with unknowns, even in new projects, but especially in remodels where we deal with existing buildings. Plus, they want to be able to deal with the change orders quickly during the construction. To go to the council and Board of Public Works would take more time.
Tim Bruer says this is uncomfortable, but could the Mayor let them know throughout the meeting if the mayor-elect has issues or concerns with various items or if he knows about them.
Mayor says he’s supportive of all directions of my administration. (joke) The Mayor says they discussed only a few things and they have not discussed this item.
Bruer asks if they discussed anything else on the agenda?
The Mayor says no.
Police Training Facility discussion
Rhodes-Conway thanks them for spending so much time on this. She says it is not troubling, because it is based on things beyond our control. She walked into the room thinking she would need to vote against it based on cost increase, but she is comforted by the savings and revenue, which would more than cover the additional debt service if it all comes true. Please let it all come true, so under those circumstances she can support the request.
Clear says he echos Rhodes-Conway and her discomfort, he appreciates how hard it is for staff to come and ask for more money to get what they thought they were going to get, which doesn’t seem fair. He says that he is going to use wishful thinking and hope that the fuel costs we are putting in will come back in fuel savings from the project. It probably doesn’t balance out but we can hope. He supports it.
Compton says cuz she won’t be here, there are people in the room that will be serving, seems most have left the meeting. She wants to make sure that all the new alders speak with the police department and find out why this is such a good deal. She says that they found less expensive property on the east side and even tho dollar signs are flying in the air, its really an awful lot more reasonable to do it this way. To under plan and to make due with this, not spend the money sounds good, but when push comes to shove we end up spending more. Why do we need to hurry up? We need to get the facility operational as fast as we can do it. We just had a young officer who took a call about two young men who were throwing firecrackers at each other but also shooting each other with bb guns, and the young officer responded to a situation where a young kid ran out the door with a weapon without a little orange tip on it. His reaction time had to be instant to save the life of that kid and that is what the facility will do. They need the best possible training they can get and that is why we need to expedite it. She’s grateful it is in her district and is proud of what they are doing and how they are making due.
Bruer says that Rhodes-Conway and Clear covered it, increased costs and cost of not moving forward, we should keep that in mind.
Rhodes-Conway asks to take some items out of order so Hoffman can go to the committee she is supposed to be staffing.
Library items
Clear moves adoption on item 17. Bruer seconds. No questions on rooftop garden study.
Verveer asks her to inform them of the Community Gardens Committee recommendations, which seem totally on point to him.
Hoffman says that there were some issues with the report, she has to look at it to refresh her memory. She looks at the report and doesn’t know what he wants her to add.
Verveer says he presumes she was there.
Hoffman says she was not. She says that they are continuing to pursue an extensive green roof, a very shallow base of soil with sedum, it captures water run off, protects the roof quality and its nice to look at. They will be adding an add/alt to include the entire roof. At this point the feasibility study does not recommend a deeper soil base to allow them to plant vegtables, that would cost more. The shallow soil roof does not allow people to walk on it, but if they did the vegtable plantings they would have to add lighting, railing, codes issue etc and that would add to the costs.
Verveer says that he personally has no objection to their recommendations, do you have any concerns with adding these as a friendly amendments, would you object to adding these to the report.
Hoffman says that she doesn’t know if they looked at the study, but it is extensive in the volume of work they have done, if passing this item number 2 for community gardens would require staff to revisit it, she would argue that work was done in the study.
Verveer says that is not his interpretation.
Bruer asks about if they have looked at where costs are going on this in light of the previous discussion.
Hoffman says that they are hiring an owner’s agent to help them come in on budget. The design team has been working with architects and engineers and they have gone through a budgetary analysis, design development documents are done and for the next month will be looking at them in relation to the budget at that point we would make significant decisions about what they will forward into construction documents. and we are paying very close attention to material pricing.
Bruer asks if they could provide a summary report for the mayor-elect and new council so we have an understanding as it proceeds, where they are and costs. She says ok.
Bruer asks if her or Barb talked with the Mayor-elect. Hoffman says yes, last Thursday.
Verveer makes a motion to add the recommendations of the Community Gardens Committee, that is friendly.
Motion passes.
The next item is the moving company to move the library. No questions, Verveer points out we don’t know where we are moving everything, but they adopt without discussion.
Final items 12 – 17
Clear moves item 12, no discussion, passes unanimously without discussion.
Clear moves item 13. The Development Review Process.
Rhodes-Conway asks what the red lined version is.
Aaron Olver says this is the document that summarizes all the recommendations of the other committees and individuals if they are minor or wording or simple. There are also a few notes that reference other documents. They will also have a new introduction. And the matrix, which shows where more abstract items recommended or where various boards and commissions made contradictory statements.
Rhodes-Conway thanks him for meeting for more than hour to meet with her. She won’t repeat that on the floor now.
Verveer asks Clear and staff about timing, given new administration and new alders. Any reason they have to act tonight. Has the mayor-elect been briefed on this. They were not aware of this in any level of detail when he met this weekend.
Olver says that they did not brief the mayor-elect.
Clear says Board of Estimates should proceed, but he can see why they would not take it up at the council meeting. He says there are 6 new alders and a new mayor that may have thoughts on it.
Rhodes-Conway asks if they will act that quickly.
Clear says that he expects EDC to be done on Wednesday, but there may be issues they can’t resolve.
Verveer says that his thoughts were that he has no objection with EDC continuing, but as a courtesy to the mayor-elect who chairs the Board of Estimates they should not vote on it tonight. Unlike the police training facility, there doesn’t seem to be a time concern.
Clausius says they don’t need to take it up, they will have it at EDC and meanwhile Mayor elect may have time to look at it.
Verveer moves referral to the next meeting, but EDC should continue. Bruer seconds.
Clear says leaning towards BOE dispensing with it, not a fiscal item, not sure why hear in the first place, thinks it should move forward. (Likely cuz he won’t be on BOE!)
Rhodes-Conway says council should refer on the 19th, she already dealt with her issues with staff, but if we want to weigh in, now is the time so EDC can consider it. She says she has mixed feelings about the “be it finally resolved” clause. Generally we accept reports and expect nothing to happen with them, so we give them less scrutiny because nothing will get implemented unless council or enterprising staff person wants to implement it. On the other hand, they did not adopt it with clause that staff should work on it, and they did and some things need council approval and progress was made on some issues. This is not specific to this report, but because personally not comfortable with the recommendations in the report, she is not comfortable with staff working on them all immediately. She is not comfortable with this blanket recommendation unless the report is changed. She can’t vote for the resolution as it stands.
The item is referred.
Items 14 – 16 are passed unanimously without much discussion. 16 has a second substitute. Clear clarifies that it is not a budget amendment, no significant additional costs. Phillips says there were savings elsewhere to make the project happen.
