By Marc Donadieu
Glacier City Gazette
Whittier City Council’s August meeting came the evening after the Girdwood Board of Supervisors’ refusal to motion consideration of Alaska State Troopers alongside Whittier’s policing proposals.
A policing contract update and unexpected construction setback with the new Public Safety Building were the main topics before council went into executive session to discuss leases and the Delong Dock.
“The Girdwood policing is ongoing,” said Whittier City Manager Mark Lynch. “I had a short debriefing today on the meeting they had last night. My understanding is that the Board of Supervisors is still in favor of Whittier policing, but there is a lot of public opposition. I’ll continue to work on that. It may be necessary to have a special meeting the second week of September if possible to discuss this.”
Mayor Daniel Blair inquired about the GBOS vote and wondered if it was unanimous. Lynch did not know, and Chief Schofield, who was at GBOS, was not yet present at Whittier’s meeting because he was installing a new Internet router for the city. The Gazette, having attended the 4½-hour GBOS meeting, then informed the council about the results.
“They listened to the opinion of Alyeska Resort and what they had to say,” said Gazette Publisher Marc Donadieu. “Alaska State Troopers made their presentation. Chief Schofield spoke as well. After all of the public questions and comments were finished, supervisor Jerry Fox asked, ‘Does anyone make a motion to consider adding Alaska State Troopers proposal in conjunction with the Whittier proposal?’ Not one supervisor made a motion. It was unanimous. That means they are going to continue with Whittier and not consider Alaska State Troopers.”
City Attorney Holly Wells, who works for Birch, Horton, Bittner and Cherot, has been involved with the negotiation process from the beginning. She gave a summary of where the process currently stands.
“We also have ongoing service contract negotiations with the Municipality of Anchorage,” Wells said. “We have had several meetings in Anchorage with a lot of their representatives and Police Chief Schofield. These are details you’ll be getting at the next meeting when we have an ordinance and a draft contract to propose. They would like to get two of those meetings so we can have approval of a contract by the end of October, which is when Girdwood would like to see that.”
During the Public Safety Building Report, Moe Zamerron, Project Manager for the new Public Service Facility Construction, was tasked with delivering information delayed by a downed city Internet service.
“The schedule has been pushed out,” Zamerron said. “Where we were looking at February or March, now they are saying May, which puts it right out to the end of the contract date. I just got it today, so I’m still trying to digest that.”
Council Member Peter Denmark was not pleased to hear about the delay and wanted to know why the initial February date for completion had been moved to May. Zamerron’s explanation referred totalks with the project’s architect and indications that the manufacturer made design errors for the foundation, which needed to be corrected.
“When the initial drawings were done for the bid package,” Zamerron said, “we had the building manufacturer provide some calculations for the foundation. When we finally got the drawings that they based it on, we realized that they had missed the mark on their design.”
”They had to go back. It’s about a two-month period that they were going back and looking at the designs. Everything was done based on what they provided initially,” he said. “When they found out that what they provided didn’t fit the layout of the building, they had to redo it, and that took time.”
The design contingency is in the contract to complete the building. Zamerron is working on determining who is responsible for the error and said he will ask for a cost reduction to account for the serious mistake.
“If we are under contract,” Denmark said, “and we have a bid package to complete this building, and there were errors made by any of the sub-contractors or the general, why would we even accept any liability for additional cost? When we’re under contract, if there are problems, somebody is going to eat it, and it ain’t us. I don’t think it should be us.”
Wells said she needs to look at the contract to find areas of vulnerability, if there are any or not. There was concern expressed over a potential legal battle if Whitter had to pay above the contracted cost or if the other parties contested paying for the error. Also at issue is the loss of potential revenue if the P12 Building is leased out after the city moves into the new building, topicss certain to arise during September’s Whittier city council meeting.