Change Orders for High School Renovation Project - This month’s list of change orders proposes six changes for Board consideration. They are as follows:
a. GC-14-27 to Nello for $4,430 to cut a door for a roof mechanical enclosure on F Building
b. GC-16-29 to Nello for $6,559 for carpet for the upper Little Theatre Lobby which was not scheduled for replacement
c. EL-05-30 to Farfield for $7,149 to restore power to the ticket booth and to parking lot lights
d. ME-02-31 to McKamish for $14,014 for smoke dampers in fire rated walls not on drawings
e. EL-06-32 to Farfield for $1,937 for design changes in lighting in F Building for the inside EXIT sign
f. EL-07-33 to Farfield for $4,852 to add a new emergency circuit for existing house lights in the Little Theatre
These changes have been reviewed by PJ Dick, the architects, Rick Marciniak and Jan Klein who recommend them for Board approval. The superintendent recommends approval of these change orders.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
'Tis the season...for more change orders
Looks like the MTLSD website is up and running again. The agenda for tomorrow's school board meeting includes more change orders totaling $38,941 for the December 17, 2012 meeting.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
$7,100 to restore power and lights to ticket booth? Nobody figured if you cut power at some point you'd have to restore it?
The $4,500 to cut a door for a mechanical systems enclosure on bldg F roof. Wow,rocket science here. Put a mechanical system in a room on a roof with no way to access it.
$6,500 to replace carpet in Little Theatre upper lobby?
If my memory is still working there wasn't any carpet in the upstairs lobby. It was terrazzo. There was carpet in the little area inside the doors but that can't possibly $6,500 to carpet!
Hun, someone with experience needs to chime in here please.
Are smoke dampers so new that who ever specified a fire rated wall in the original design, wouldn't have speced them?
Seems this is an oversight by the architect or an intentional omission to have gotten the project in without a referendum.
7:55 You're on to them - it's the district "catch me if you can" sham that very quietly parallels the delete alternate & "value engineering" steps to avoid referendum after the first high bid fiasco.
Since school boards hire "professionals" to develop their building plans, it should not be up to the taxpayers to pay for those pesky little errors and omissions that add up to millions.
I'm for requiring referendum votes on any building project.
Looks like we are close to the Million Dollar change order mark.
When's the ceremony?
All those promises from Remeley to keep these costs down are starting to ring hollow.
He sounded so serious when he said he would vote to set the limit at $113 million and assured us that it was an "All-in" cost that would come in under $100 million.
Looks like we will end up closer to $113 than his wing-and-a-lie $95 million.
It's not like this was predictable or anything...oh wait, it was...nevermind.
just admit it, Mt.Lebanon taxpayers, it's a sham and you are all getting screwed.
Merry Christmas, and thank you Dan Remely!
Don't forget his partner in crime, our newly elected president, Elaine Cappucci.
Elaine
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"
William Shakespeare
From Shakespeare-online:
"The quote in context
Shortly before midnight, Hamlet meets Horatio on the battlements of the castle. They wait together in the darkness. From below they hear the sound of the men in the castle laughing and dancing riotously; the King draining his "draughts of Rhenish down" (10). Hamlet explains to Horatio his dislike of such behaviour. To Hamlet, drinking to excess has ruined the whole nation, which is known abroad as a land full of drunken swine.
Horatio spots the Ghost of Hamlet's father approaching. Hamlet calls out to the Ghost and it beckons Hamlet to leave with it. Despite the pleadings of Horatio and Marcellus, who are afraid that the apparition might be an evil entity in disguise, Hamlet agrees to follow the Ghost and the two figures disappear into the dark.
Marcellus, shaken by the many recent disturbing events and no doubt angered (as is Hamlet) by Claudius's mismanagement of the body politic, astutely notes that Denmark is festering with moral and political corruption."
Alas, could I be dreaming that I'm but a bit player in a modern production of Hamlet?
As long as the the project is further along than the contingency, all is well for President Pooch.
Why do we continue to believe in these cat and mouse games played out by the school board?
Where the "contrived action involving constant pursuit, near captures, and repeated escapes" occur on every change order and salary negotiation.
Has the rejected or even come close to rejecting a change order? Marciniak and Kline approve it and the board, despite their oft repeated claims that they are going to hold the line on the project cost - never does.
The same goes for salary votes. Has anyone ever, ever not exceeded expectations. Well, here perhaps maybe one didn't... maybe-- Marge Sable. But she still walked away with over half a million dollars.
So why don't we just do away with the board, sell off the cameras, shut down Cable Channel 19.
Sit the superintendent down at a library empty table with 9 empty chairs and let him get on with the district's business of spending more and more money and achieving the same results. It's been working pretty much that way for years.
We're only fooling ourselves that we have any input.
If you get time catch the discussion on the above change orders.
Ms. Posti ask Mr. Birkibiel (sp?) if the last 3 change orders should've been in the original plans. He replied yes and later added that the first should've been in the original plans too.
Mr. Remely chimes I with his usual day late indignation on Celli.
If these items should've been in the original specs why are we even considering accepting them.
Oh, by the way, does anyone feel that Mr. Marciniak is looking out for Dick and Nello and not the taxpayers?
Were those dollars signs in Peterson's eyes?
Yes --- many of these are things Celli should have had in his original drawings, making them part of the "bid" number.
The salt in the would be this: while he is on a fixed fee for the "bid" project, he might get a percentage on change orders ... to pay him for the extra work required ... because he did not do the right work in the first place ... when it should have been required ...
The salt in the wound is bad enough but what is really maddening is Posti and Remely actually sitting before the public and proclaiming, " I'm seeing a trend" in these last two groups of change orders." The public has been aware of a trend since the projects very early stages and Remely and Posti should have been aware at the very latest when the first bid came in way over expectations. Here's something else that has become apparent. How many times will Steinhauer come to a board meeting unprepared to talk about an agenda item?
During the calendar discussion he looks up and pleads for someone to "help me out here." am I mistaken or is this a constant refrain from our super Super?
Hey Remely, Posti the suspicious trend in change orders goes back to the very first one for $180,000 worth of dirty or this one from July: "High School Project Change Order #GC-002: RESOLVED, That the Board approves Change Order #GC-002 dated July 24, 2012, to Nello Construction in the amount of $82,360.57 for the installation of Geofoam along the north and east perimeter walls in Building H in substantially the form presented."
Don't play the surprise card again, you already played that one when the first bid shocked you out of your socks. You and the rest of the board were warned, but you two and Cappucci didn't want to heed the advice of the volunteer CAC experts, nor Fraasch's warnings on finances.
Plus 4,000 residents ask you to look deeper and you didn't.
This board is cheerleading for the unions.
How's that liaison working out for you school board?
Post a Comment