Story posted Thursday, June 11, 2009
Extra $500,000 OKd For PW Facility
By CRAIG ADAMS Journal & Topics Reporter
Wheeling trustees approved nearly $500,000 in add-ons for the village's new public works facility.
The change orders include items such as additional outlets and sprinklers, but soil movement caused most of the cost overruns. Trustee Pat Horcher explained the $12.5 million project had a contingency fund built into the budget.
"If it hadn't been for all of the soil work, we would not have been over that," he said. "That's really what tipped us over." According to Horcher, about half of the change orders concerned moving, storing, or reconfiguring soil for the project.
At their meeting on Monday, June 8, trustees examined changes totaling $600,000 before striking several of them including a trophy case and granite countertops in an effort to save money. Although the items can be interpreted as luxuries, Horcher disagrees.
"I did come to the defenses of the builders... when you walk into the lobby there would have been four vacant walls," he said. Horcher explained the trophy case was going to be a framed out section of wall with a glass front. "It wasn't part of the original deal, but it was not real luxury." He pointed out that most of the appearance items would have been in the front lobby area where people would see them, not in the back "antiseptic" areas where the workers would perform their jobs.
He also defended making changes now rather than later. He explained that additional outlets were added to rooms after workers were interviewed and asked how they would best use the rooms.
"A lot of the change orders were result of good sense," he said. However, although adding the outlets during the build out will be cheaper than after the building is finished, Horcher still questioned the preliminary work. "Shouldn't that have been done during the planning stages?" he asked. "Yes, it should have," he answered himself.
"The original plan was a little deficient," he continued. Another change was for sprinklers that were missed in a fire department review of the plans.
Horcher maintains the village did not need the building.
"I'm the only one who voted against that thing from conception to ground breaking to now," he said. While calling the structure "unnecessary" he still believes the process is good.
"I think it was managed as best it could be," he said.
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