Every. Alder. In. The. Room. Had. To. Speak. Plus, the mayor. And the vote was 18 – 1. In their defense, many of them had harsh words for the Mayor in his handling of the issue and that was probably the bigger issue. If their budgeting process is to have any integrity, they had to stop this practice now. But you won’t read or hear about that in the news or the mayor’s blog. (As a side note, his second paragraph is precious given the following “debate”.) Also, their discussion of Racism in the Criminal Justice System was interesting.
THE LIBRARY
Mark Clear deferrred to Sivar Bidar-Sielaff to make the motion, she moved the alternate, that requires 15 votes to pass.
Public Testimony
Tripp Widder, President of the Library Board. He’s here to urge affirmative vote on the rebuilding of central library on current site. The Central Library issue has been around over 10 years, he is concerned that time is of the essence, delay is damaging to prospects, damaging cuz they will lose the low cost construction window, as economy improves that will close and we will lose the advantage, the New Market Tax Credits are tied to projects that can move forward, that is a piece of the financing, he is concerned about deteriorating conditions of central if major items were to go, it could be a significant expenditure that would be waste of money, worried the longer we wait the more likely it is soemthing bad will happen, and he doesn’t want to send a negative message to the donor base, any dissonance will lead donors to have leave their money elsewhere. He leaves them with four words. Cheaper. It’s cheaper to build and operate, floor plates in place, 3 not 6 floors. Sooner. Foundation and structure is in place not rebuild. Bigger. Almost 25K feet bigger. Better. It’s a better site and facility for library, if fully funded design we will be surprised with fabulous structure they can have.
Stu Levitan [I thought I heard the Mayor say he was representing THRVIE, but I don’t think so.] He says he was here at budget time and gave a rip snorting speech. When that fell apart he was highly critical of the product and process and made critical comments privately and publicly. He has come to realize three things. 1. He was not part of negotiations, don’t know why fell apart. 2) Nothing in intervening time prevented Fiore from making new offers and; 3) He is convinced that from a library perspective, this is a better site. The original was wonderful and brilliant, economic development and new library on prominent site, we all fell in love, from downtown development perspective that is preferred but from library operation maintenance and design this is better, he WANTS the two site solution but NEEDS a library. Normally he quotes Bob Dylan, but he’s quoting some English rockers instead. “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.” I WANT the two site solution, we NEED a new library, we should not go into this grudgingly or disparagingly. This is great, now cheaper and better and this will still be a way to honor the past – this is an importance and significant building and a flagship – he doesn’t care if it is an 11 or 15 vote item, he supports the library, you can still recognize the past, and future generations will honor you.
Questions of Staff a.k.a. Let the confusion begin.
Judy Compton has questions of staff. Will there be another RFQ (Request for Qualifications) for the project?
Jeanne Hoffman, Facilities Management, says already implemented the RFQ process, will be finalizing after the resolution is adopted.
Compton asks if RFQ was for inside vs. what doing now.
Hoffman says initial was interior, there have been two addendums, the first asked for additional information on experience building core and shell and high rise, 2nd asked for experience on renovation and remodels, they gathered all that material.
[Compton would know that if she attended the meeting just a few hours earlier.]
Compton asks about if the addendum was sent to all possible applicants or just to the top 5.
Hoffman says the RFQ went out 11 vendors, addendum 1 went to all 11, selection committee met and chose the top 5 and addendum 2 was sent to five applicants.
Compton wants to clarify for people, [yeah, bad idea.] she says we have renovation craftsman, the city asked for a RFQ, then changed it to renovation and checked with 5 that were chosen for interior work then we are asking them to do the finish work, dry wall and faces on plugs and light fixtures and we only asked the 5 people about that work, that is who you sent amendment to. [Compton is right that the process is screwed up, but she is wrong about what the work is that is being done and this leads to confusion.]
Jeanne says RFQ asked to describe experience in designing a library of significant size, looking for experience in designing library over 100K gathered the info. They sent out the first addendum, they answered about their experience and then the last addendum was to find out their experience with renovation.
Compton asks if another time in process to vote on if there is going to be another RFQ.
Mayor says promptly and curtly answers “no”.
Compton says approving tonight does not open door to other craftsman.
Hoffman clarifies that this is about design services, not construction. [BINGO!]
Compton says they will have an opportunity.
Mayor [Now gets it . . . ]says for contract on building the building they will get another vote, this is the contract for the design work and this is the final vote. He says there will be a public works bid contract will be used and general contractors and craftsman will bid on the project.
Compton confirms there will be an RFQ for renovation of the building.
Hoffman says the RFQ was for architect and engineering services, construction will be a public works bidding process different than RFQ.
AMENDMENT
1. Julia Kerr has an amendment.
Mayor checks if there are any other questions for staff, there are none.
Kerr moves an amendment to the alternate, in the be it finally resolved clause, add after architect and design engineering firm “owners representative”. Add an additional sentence, “Owners representative will assist facilty management staff in design and . . . .to meet budget and design standards.” She hopes it is friendly, she spoke with several folks. She ran it past the library gurus, they represent our interest and assist facilities management – its a cost control insurance measure, this is a big renovation we don’t do them of this size, it is prudent in a project like this, need someone with special skills – they will go over change orders and duke out with contractor and architect, they decide what to approve and design and that it gets done on time and on budget.
Cnare has a question for staff on amendment, for Brasser of Hoffman – how much would this cost? Are there funds to do that right now?
Hoffman says that owner rep is typically 1 – 3% of construction costs, they will negotiate and will take into consideration with budget.
Cnare asks what that process would be?
Hoffman says they already issues the RFQ (a second one) because they knew they would need one for the W. Washington site.
Mayor says he sees no objections and he considers it friendly.
Discussion on main motion
2. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff says that the reason for the alternate is, that even tho it may seem boring for people who want to go ahead and do library, she feels strongly about integrity of budget process, this should be a 15 vote item, she felt the original was not adequate. She had a number of exchanges with city attorney and they had a major disagreement on understanding of the law about if it was a 15 vote item. She says the purpose of the money has changed, we all knew what we were voting for, we pointed to that project, there was $4M for the sale of land, $10M in fundraising, that was specific to specific project at the time, new central library is not the current project, this is rebuild on current site. She hopes that they all make sure that what we supportive of the library, but also have to maintain integrity and not hand over to the executive branch in 11 votes what voted for in budget process. On the library, she supports the alternate, will not support Clear amendment if alternate fails out of principle, because of the principle and integrity of the budget process. The library can be built later. She has not felt good about how process went, decisions and RFQ are taking into account changes that we were not aware of on a timely basis and not included in – she is a supporter of library, hopes it is visionary, but this leaves us all with many questions about how we got here, so going on record, if there was another solution she would bring it, she will not vote no and not have another solution at the table. If another possibility with Fiore or another project by developer, will support it, but hopes not go to such awful process ever again, she will be vigilant that we don’t.
3. Michael Schumacher echos Bidar-Sielaff and thanks her for her leadership – he was torn cuz last fall they were told with lots of public support that a whole new site is the best deal, renovation is secondary, we were told that would be the worst scenario – we had a used Cadillac, that we were told was a junker, now its all different. Integrity concerns him, will support alternate but not underlying motion and if this fails he will say that a number of alders tried to get information for two months and did not receive any. When the deal with changes council needs to be full partner.
4. Satya Rhodes-Conway says “What Shiva said.”
5. Mark Clear says he spoke at Board of Estimates so he’ll be brief but the 15 vs. 11 votes, and supporting or not on principal, he finds baffling. [Why am I not surprised he finds principles baffling?]. He says if you support the library you support the library project. Who would be punished by supporting 15 not 11 vote item? For all intents and purposes the its the same, he intentionally left out question of budget numbers, we had no idea other than it would be “less”, depending upon how much renovation would cost, may need budget amendment, when we have better handle on it. He even left $4M for exiting site which obviously we will not do. He wanted to leave it alone and state direction on change of direction, so he doesn’t follow the logic of making it harder to make the decision out of principle, it mystifies him. [A dude this clueless should not be in leadership. The problem is, I don’t think he’s dumb, I think he understands perfectly well what is happening.] He says he will grudgingly support it, what is the important thing is the outcome, that is the outcome most, if not all of us, want. [I’m pretty sure he just said the ends justify the means.] Whether support or oppose this version, support original if this fails.
Ok – my day did not go at all as planned, but I wanted people to get a flavor of the discussion . . . the rest will be in Part III in the morning.
