Tag: JNW Architects

City Hall and Azbell Saga – Part III (2015 Timeline)

Things were quiet for a bit after the previous fireworks.  When I go through every single page of minutes, I not only read them all the way through, I also use keyword searches to make sure I didn’t miss anything – keywords like “Azbell”, “Monica”, “chambers”, “civic center” and maybe a couple more, as I am finding waste in other areas as well.

August 24, 2015: This is where things get a bit confusing.  Near as I can figure, they were already renovating “Old City Hall” before all this Council Chambers mess and maybe decided that instead of building an entirely new structure JUST for city council, they will locate inside newly renovated “Old City Hall” which seems so logical, I don’t know why any other ideas were even entertained.

Regardless, we see from the minutes that “Old City Hall: city staff has met with a potential elevator shaft contractor, as well as an architect and structural engineer. After the elevator has been specified and located, staff will begin soliciting trade services for plumbing, electrical and HVAC.  Monica Wright has discussed the change of location with the IT vendor for A/V system and it appears cost should be equivalent to quotes received for the previously proposed Chamber project”

[OK – so it appears the original $34,000 bid from Broadcast Works is still alive.  There has been no mention of any other deal or re-bidding of anything – gotta assume they are still talking about Broadcast Works here]

September 28, 2015: Minutes state “Update on Council chambers” – since the “Council Chambers” project is supposed to be dead, I have to once again assume they actually mean “the council chambers inside soon-to-be-renovated Old City Hall”.  Again, the way all this is worded is somewhat confusing.  But the minutes tell us that “the audio visual vendor toured the building and saw no problem with doing the work” – and also that “Mayor Toups wants to know the probable total cost of this project before proceeding any further” [not sure if this means the cost of the ENTIRE City Hall renovation or just the council chambers portion – confusing, as it seems to be a habit of some of these people to get halfway through a project before discussing cost.]

Council member Harrison [who apparently has a learning curve that looks like a flat line] said he preferred working with JNW Architects [remember them?] since “Council had worked with them before on the previous plan” [yes they did…on a plan that resembled the Bay of Pigs invasion].

Council member McCauley preferred NOT working with JNW Architects because of all the screw-ups on the last project – “which was very costly “[circle gets the square, McCauley]

November 23, 2015: Finley hands Council a proposal to let JNW Architects [again??] cash yet another $18,500 check for “architectural services” for Old City Hall.  Toups, not unlike a cow who has wandered into an electric fence one too many times, is wary of Finley bearing gifts…he asks “how many more ‘architectural services’ would need to be done after this phase and how much more cost could the city be looking at” [good question!!]

Jennifer Walker of JNW Architects [who could have played the Serpent in the garden of Eden to some acclaim] said that it depended on what was found and she couldn’t really give an amount, since no building plans exist [blank check alert!!!].  Finley backs her up: no floor plans can be found….just a few schematics.

Mike White [also clearly wary of the proverbial electric fence shock] states that “with so many unknowns, it could turn into an open-checkbook project [ding ding ding ding!!]

 

That is it for 2015….stay tuned for Part IV

Timeline and Questions for Azbell $100,000.00 A/V Rip-off – PART I (Birth of a Bad Idea)

OK – so, I have spent about 48 hours reading through every single page of every city council minutes since January 1, 2013 (first available online) to try and piece together this Azbell debacle.  That means I have probably spent about 45 more hours than city council has spent on this to date.

Here is a synopsis timeline and my comments in bracketed italics.  I know some parts may make eyes glaze over, but PLEASE read it through – you will be shocked.  The incompetence is stunning.  I have also broken all this into six separate blog posts, so as to be digested easier.

Late 2013 and early 2014: City council gets a bug up their butt about needing new chambers.  I have no idea why new chambers were supposedly needed, but approximately $350,000 was earmarked for the project.  They hire an architect [JNW Architect at a cost of $35,000] and intermittently argue at council meetings over the rest of the year about whether this is a good use of funds.

AUGUST 24, 2014: Monica Wright returns to City Council with three bids for an audio/visual system [yes, this seems very premature since there aren’t even any plans yet, but this is par for the course…]

  1. Broadcast Works   $33,983.00
  2. Azbell    $41,184.00
  3. Whitlock  $54,411.36 

Monica then recommends they go with Broadcast Works.  Then-councilman Chris Toups moves to award the contract, and then-councilwoman (and current mayor) MISTI TALBERT seconds this motion.  It is then unanimously approved (Mike White is present at this meeting and approves).

All well and good.  Three bids were gotten, the lowest one wins, and the matter is settled.  Or is it?  [Why are they getting bids on an AV system before anything else is even decided on or planned out?  It would be like, oh I don’t know, buying $13,000 worth of chairs before you even had a blueprint….]

MARCH 30, 2015: Special minutes show that two bids came in for the new council chambers project.

  1. MW Hail Construction: $778,502
  2. RKJ Construction $793,379

OOPS!!!  These numbers are more than DOUBLE what they have budgeted!!

Council members stare, mouth agape and eyes boggling, and ask why it’s so much money?  They also asked why the bids were not broken down more.  Then deGraffenreid said he met with city attorney JC Brown, and she suggested NOT to meet with the contractors so there would be no hint of favoritism.  She suggested the bids be rejected and scope of services revised – she would then meet with the contractors and find out why bids were so high.

Jennifer Walker (JNW Architects) said she and city manager Finley will meet and try to figure this out.  She could not answer what drove the bid so high because the bids were not by component or broken down [Duuuhh…don’t ask me!  I’m just the $35,000 architect!]

April 13, 2015: This is where things really go off the rails and the sh*t hits the fan and fingers get pointed.  This is a good one, so read it all!

Apparently the big cost overrun is related to the base pad.  If they take out the base pad, and have the city build it, they can save $100,000 – but many contractors won’t build on a pad built by the city [liability, I’m guessing] and city crews do not have experience building pads.  Not to mention, it will take them away from their city jobs AND the project is STILL at least $250,000 over budget.  Mike White [to his credit] says he does not like the idea of the City crews building the pad.

Mayor Grayson, and council members Toups and White stated they do not feel comfortable constructing a building if it will cost $700,000 [YAY!  Fiscal sanity for a brief moment]

[This should have been the end of this disaster.  They wanted something…they budgeted X dollars…the bids were twice that…so they can’t do it.  End of story.  Who kept this train wreck going?  Who acted like 4-year-olds and said “I want I want I want I want”?]

Mayor Pro Tem Wanda Biershwale, Council members TJ Monroe, Chuck Williamson and Misti Talbert stated they would like to see new bids.

[Toups, White and Grayson clearly saw that this was a disaster-in-the-making and pushed against.  More than a few times, Toups stated the city had better uses for this money.  Monroe, Williamson, Talbert and Biershwale kept this disaster alive another day.  Biershwale is now gone but the others STILL sit on council and Talbert is mayor].

So…who bungled this so badly?  Finley’s name pops up a few times in the following discussion of “why is the cost double what we budgeted?”.  Some ‘answers’ were fleshed out:

It is then stated that the City has already incurred the following expenses for this debacle:

$28,338 on furnishings [yes, they were buying furniture before they even had a plan done – including $12,780 on 100 stacking chairs, because “we needed to spend our year end funds”]

$33,983 for AV bid [this is the Broadcast Works bid from above, and the minutes EXPLICITLY use the words ‘expenses INCURRED‘ – so did they already hand Broadcast Works $33,983?  Nothing would surprise me with this group]

$35,000 to JNW Architect, the geniuses in charge who didn’t think to get a cost analysis done first.  Total clowns.

$7,313 for curbing and a pad for a generator

$5,596 for Geotechnical engineering survey

With $100,000 already burned in this dumpster fire, Council goes looking for an explanation and maybe an ass or two to kick….and more than a few fingers are pointed at Finley.  To wit:

Council asks why the cost is double and why wasn’t a cost analysis done?  Now Finley does a bit of backpedaling, as the minutes state “the budgeted amount was suggested by Finley as just ‘a starting point for planning’ [ah yes…we can’t stick to a budget, so we’ll say it was just a starting point].

Furthermore, JNW Architect “did not do a cost analysis because it was not part of their contract with the city” – sounds like Finley bungling, since I’m guessing he wrote the contract (?).  Pretty big screw-up for a City Manager who has been doing this for at least 7 years.

Also, JNW Architect “designed the building by what the city wanted and not by what was budgeted” – say what???  This is a MASSIVE screw-up on either Finley’s part or the part of JNW.  This is a HUGE miscommunication at best.  Downright extreme incompetence at worst.

Was anyone taken to the woodshed over this?  Did heads roll?  Of course not.  This is City Government and par for the course.  So now Council decides they have three options going forward:

  1. Terminate agreements and end project [this is what should have happened].
  2. Change to a metal building to maybe reduce costs.
  3. Re-budget and cough up the money to “keep the WOW! factor the city deserves” [yes, they ACTUALLY SAID THAT…it is in the minutes.  Some of the people in charge of millions of dollars are making decisions on based on “wow” factors.  Presumably as in  “WOW, they are a bunch of morons to get ripped-off like that” or maybe “WOW! They must let the mentally retarded hold the purse strings in that city”]

Well…we all know they chose the worst option.  I will continue in Part II later today or tomorrow.