Buildings and Facilities Task Force

Monday, March 3, 2025 - 9:00 am

Steve McNally - Chairman

Chairman McNally called this task force to order at 9:30 am with the following in attendance: Matt Brassard, Chris Clark, Derek Doty, Shaun Gillilland, Charlie Harrington, Steve McNally, Jim Monty, Cathleen Reusser, Favor Smith, Ike Tyler, Meg Wood, Mark Wright, Mike Mascarenas and Jim Dougan. had been previously excused

Also present: Dina Garvey, Nancy Page, Bill Johnston and Elizabeth Lee.

MCNALLY: Go ahead, Jimmy.

DOUGAN: Ag and Youth Building; preconstruction meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, it’s right down here. We have USDA Rural Development coming, along with our architectural consultant, along with 4 prime contractors. We’ll officially be kicking off the project, it’s quite a process to get R&D to sign off on everything, but they’re here and we’ll be doing that, issuing our full notice to proceed. We’ve done a notice of award, we have signed contracts, but that will start that process.

We’ve been doing some work, Cornell Cooperative and 4H, have been doing some work. So, we’ve been moving some items from the 4H storage building, we changed out a fuel storage tank that was in the ground, in-between where the new building is going to be built and the existing building, put a new tank in the basement of the former Cornell Building and that’s up and running and so between now and April 1^st, we’ll be demoing and relocating those other structures that are near where the building is going to be built.

Contractors have been sending in submittals, long lead times are elevator, those kinds of things to AEDA, and we’re expecting the general contractor to be onsite, early April.

TYLER: So, there is an elevator scheduled to be installed?

DOUGAN: Yup

TYLER: Is it possible to save costs to put a lift in?

DOUGAN: We asked that question during design and we, and I know you saved a lot of money there, but pretty much it’s already been bid, it’s already been done, but it’s a, I would call it a mid-grade elevator. It’s not the highest end of load and things like that, but it’s not the lowest.

TYLER: Good for what you need.

DOUGAN: Yup, yup.

So, that’s the Ag and Youth Building.

The Old Jail; the structure’s gone. You guys have probably all seen that. Once spring gets here, DPW staff, we’ve got to reconnect the sewer lateral that went through that building, to the former Probation Building, back over to where the big sewer tanks are and things like that. Right now, we’re working on some conceptual designs for parking or landscaping or sidewalks in that area. Once I have a couple of different designs, I’ll bring them back here and let you guys see what we think we want to do. We are, on that Probation Building, we are going to open back up, there were two doors on the back side of the building, originally and that’s where we’re make our handicapped assessable ramps, rather than making any major change to the front of the building. The goal is to get that designed and you guys set aside, you would be doing it today, setting aside about $50,000.00 for us to do some site work, back there, later this year.

TYLER: Are you going to do it all in-house, Jim?

DOUGAN: Trying to do it all in-house. The sidewalks and ramps, I may bring a contractor in for that, but we should be able to do our paving. It kinds of depends on what we end up with for what our final design is.

Frontier Town; so that first phase, which was the Main Street area, where we’ve got, you know, the buildings falling down on themselves, you know, we’re out to bid, right now. The bids are due Thursday, March 30^th and we have pre-bid meeting scheduled for this Thursday, that meeting is actually going to take place down at Chris’ town office, so after the meeting we can walk the site with any bidders.

The Fairgrounds; the former CCE building, starting to work on a roof replacement project for that. If you drive by that at all, you can see that the roof is falling, pretty good, especially in the areas that aren’t directly below the cupula, that cupula on the top, you can see that the shingles still look nice and red, but on the other ends of it, they’re turning black and falling right off. So, that roof is only about 15-18 years old, but the building didn’t have the right ventilation or insulation in the attic. So, I have reached out to our architectural term contractor for a proposal to do a ventilation, basically to deal with the ventilation of that, going to try and get that designed this year, get the construction costs and then that will probably be one of the projects that I will bring next year to redo that roof, unless, I get design done early enough and it makes sense while I have some contractors already building a building next door, if it looks like something that we can do while they’re there, then we might try that.

I want to bring up the portable stage unit, I don’t know if today is when we want to figure this out, but we have been talking, that unit was bid and a purchase order was issued in January. We’re hoping to have to here by fair time, but they said 6-8 months. So, if we get it in 6 months, it should be here, if it takes the 8, it probably won’t, but one of the things that we’re been talking about in the standardizing services, with the towns, is having a, towns can use this, we’re talked about, but it’s setting up a fee structure, if we’re going to set up a fee structure and maybe this is where to have that conversation. We were thinking, at least, we’re going to have a DPW staff, set that up, every time, it’s $160,000.00 piece of equipment. So, we’re going to have someone that we’re going to train to set it up, every time, deliver, set it up. So, we were at least thinking at a minimum that we would just cover the cost of that person, hauling it wherever they haul it and setting it up.

TYLER: Is this the same size or smaller than the one we had last year?

MASCARENAS: I don’t know exactly what size you has last year. You ended up with the bigger one, not the one that was quoted. I’ll get you the exact size, I don’t want to give you the wrong one, 20x24 or something like that, so it’s good sized. What we would like to do, the towns for events, you know, will reserve it, likely and we’ll get you that stage, but when we start talking about non-profits and those types of things for events, how are we going to prioritize that? What are we going to look at for a fee schedule, if any? My thought is you would have some sort of fee schedule, simply because we would want a replacement plan for it. So, if this piece of equipment is going to last an X number of years and we can get so much back on the fee, it’s a real asset to our county in terms of tourism and you know the money that is going to bring in on the side. So, we would certainly want to figure that out, but we need to specifics, because we’re getting into spring, if it does come in, say June, it could, people are going to want it and they’re going to wait to use it for events. So, how are we going to do that? What are the rules going to be? The fee attached? That way we’re not tacking on, onesie, twosie, every month if somebody makes a request at a Board meeting, we kind of have something standardized we can tell people that are interested in it.

SMITH: It depends on the demand.

MASCARENAS: Yeah

SMITH: You’re replacement cost, it will last for years if there are only 5 people asking for it a year.

MASCARENAS: Or it there’s a lot and we’re finding that we can’t meet the depend, so they’re could be that, too. It could do one of either direction.

REUSSER: Are we going to promote it?

WOOD: You won’t need to.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, I don’t have a plan for promotion of the stage, simply because.

WOOD: I don’t want to complete.

BRASSARD: I’m going to use it.

MASCARENAS: In terms, I don’t think we would get private, that just doesn’t work, but the non-profit world, mostly deal with us now in terms of contracts and those types of things and municipal and so I think that’s kind of where our focus is on the municipal use and the non-profit use. I would stay away from the private sector.

GILLILLAND: One of the things, too, is going in and the setting up, that’s what we do, I mean we go in and put the thing up, so I am sure that there are going to be a lot of issues with ground preparation with some of these places and so, Jim, you want to think about having an info paper of requirements, before they show up and lays it and whoever, the non-profit or town that is responsible for that. You don’t want our guys show up and say, you’ve got to put blocks there and those kinds of things.

DOUGAN: Yup

TYLER: I think it would have to be organized between all 18 towns and the supervisors would be in charge of their towns, if somebody wanted it in their town.

MASCARENAS: Yeah , it’s just more about priority, how do you reserve it, how do you get in the calendar, if you and Cathy both have an event the same day.

LEE: I don’t know if it would make sense or not, but is it a possibility to have like a minimum fee that covers the County’s cost and then whatever and then have a sliding scale, so smaller non-profits, that are trying to establish an event, can still maybe get a piece of use. If it doesn’t conflict with anyone else. It’s just because, I am thinking if it was a $25,000.00 fee, there’s a whole bunch of organizations that have talked about it.

MASCARENAS: We wouldn’t be looking at that. I will give you a for instance. Last year, we ended up renting the stage for the Fair, because what happened was in the 11^th hour, we got a request, kind of to put a roof on there, government can’t move quickly enough to get it kind of engineered and all those fun things to meet their request. The stage was in pretty rough shape anyhow and that’s where we came up with this idea. So, we rented it for the Fair, in terms of it gave us a year to do that, it was $5,000.00, for the whole week. I’m guessing we’re not going to be looking at kind of fee, by law, Jim, has to charge. So, anybody, you guys all know, money goes back and forth, between highways all the time, in terms of he does work for you, you do work for him and you have to charge for those services. So, that’s the minimum fee that you’re talking about, kind of what Jim really alluded to, there. He put a guy in a tractor trailer truck and delivers that, it’s usually, there’s a standard equipment cost for whatever piece of equipment towed it and then there’s a fee for the individual.

TYLER: I think it just add, Michael, that the ROOST money, all of our towns have this ROOST money and that’s what it’s for.

WOOD: Yeah

MONTY: Thank you

TYLER: And if an entity in your town wants it, then you the town will pay the price and then they have to collect whatever they want from that entity.

GILLILLAND: And we also need to make sure that we’re not competing against commercial activities that also do this, because they’ll be back us, like why are you competing and undercutting out business.

MASCARENAS: And we can do that, too, Ike. I think we can come up with a lot of options for the Board, and then kind of throw it all out there and see what sticks and let decisions fall where they may.

DOUGAN: I’ll try and put some options together, just going from this conversation and then give you guys something to look at, give an idea of what typical setup is going to take, typical hauling, those kinds of things and start with that, at least my thought.

TYLER: I like the idea of putting the money you get into a fund for replacement purposes.

MASCARENAS: We don’t do that enough and then it’s like, how are we going to replace that.

MONTY: One quick thing, will you be assigning, someone, Jim, from DPW, who’s been trained in this, like when that is, when they’re setting it up and obviously, we’ll be there when they’re setting it up.

DOUGAN: Who’s setting it up?

MONTY: We’re setting it up.

DOUGAN: We’re going to set it up.

MONTY: But, during the event, will somebody be there, so that something doesn’t happen that somebody goes and starts hacking on it or doing something that when we go to pick it up, that now it’s been damaged?

WOOD: Wouldn’t that be the responsibility…

MONTY: Well, you would think that, but that doesn’t always occur, because a lot of times we’ve had equipment that’s gone out and things have happened, i.e., a bucket truck, where holes have got drilled in the bucket, but yet, nobody took responsibly for it.

DOUGAN: Yeah

MONTY: And so we had to go out and get a brand new bucket truck. So, somebody needs to be held accountable for what happens with that piece.

WOOD: It should be in the contract.

MONTY: I believe so.

DOUGAN: That’s a whole different, again in our options, that’s a whole different fee schedule; right? If you’re going to keep somebody there, the whole event.

MONTY: I agree, I agree, but I just want to protect this piece of equipment that we’re going to have.

WOOD: When that stage is delivered on am afternoon, for an next day event, you’re not going to want somebody hanging around.

MONTY: I’m just saying if it was for the event, during the event, itself.

But, we can plan that.

WOOD: The damage in our Town would happen at 1:00 AM.

MONTY: Most places it would.

MCNALLY: The Town can get a rider on their insurance while it’s at their facility, but I think this year, I don’t know if I would put it out there and send it all over the place. I think I’d limit it to municipalities and the Fair. I think you could get bombarded with requests from every non-profit and I think we should really find out how this works.

MONTY: I don’t think those requests will come until next year, after they see it.

BRASSARD: Right

MCNALLY: I personally would limit it to the fairgrounds and the municipalities for the first summer and see how it goes. You know we might find out that it’s more labor intensive, than we thought to set up, and then we’ll know what the cost is going to be on an average. Say you bring it to Minerva and it takes you 2-hours to set up and then you take it to Ti and it takes 8 hours to set up. You know, you have to have some data before.

MASCARENAS: Well, and there’s going to be power things, right, that you got to deal with. The sites are going to have to have proper power to be able to plug in the unit and that kind of thing and you’re going to want somebody that knows that they’re doing, doing that. Other than that, once it’s setup, there wouldn’t be a need to touch it, there just wouldn’t.

MCNALLY: You know lighting, does it have lighting, at all?

MASCARENAS: It has the ability for bigger shows to do their own. So, if, say you had a big concert coming in, the trusses are there, all those types of things, the hanging banners on the side. It has the capability of doing all those things, but they’re, like I have a band, you have to have your own lights, we’re not going to supply that.

MCNALLY: You got to have some kind of regulation, hey, listen, because you have a 75 pound light, you can’t drill a hole or do something.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, they got all the trusses for lights, shouldn’t be a problem. Anybody in the industry that does those kinds of things, would come with people that did it, if they were big enough to do that, if that makes sense to you? Like your CCR group, did they have good lights?

TYLER: Yeah

MASCARENAS: Yeah, so they probably hung their own from the trusses when they got there.

TYLER: Yeah

DOUGAN: The former Probation Building; now that the jail came down without taking that building down to the ground, as well, we can talk about starting to remodel that. Again, today, you guys are moving some money from the building capital reserve fund towards starting some projects in that building. So, we were doing a portion of the building, that really would be the south side of the side closest to the main complex here and Treasurer’s office, we’re doing 1^st floor and 2^nd floor, starting with demolishing all the non-structural walls. It was all cut up, if anybody has been in there, remembers it and so we’re starting to rework that. We’ve got a proposal out, a request out from our environmental consultant to just do an asbestos survey, to make sure that we have nothing to worry about there. We have taken down some of the non-structural walls, but they were all built in the last 15 years or so. We aren’t worried about that, but we are a little suspect of some of the flooring. So, we will do a survey of that.

MCNALLY: Do we have a defined purpose, moving forward of that building? What you’re going to do with that building?

MASCARENAS: What we’re going to try and do is more piecemeal that building as we go.

MCNALLY: I mean, do you have anybody you plan on putting in there?

MASCARENAS: Yes, we have an issue with, what do I want to say? Extra space, where when you do work somewhere, we can put people someplace else, swing space.

DOUGAN: We have no swing space.

MASCARENAS: So, what we’re really trying to do is prep an area for a specific purpose and then move on to the next while we vacant another area and then we can do that kind of work.

REUSSER: Understood.

MASCARENAS: So, initially I want to put Personnel, in that front section, have front door access to the Personnel Department, your job postings, those types of things and then we’ll get into these offices and be able to redo some of that. I think in a perfect world, we have our Assigned Counsel position that’s now sitting in the center of the County in an office by themselves and it’s not conducive to the work that they’re doing. So, they’re in with the Auditor, which is a little strange. They get visits from clientele and those types of things, it’s just not setup properly. So, we have a part time attorney, I think the lower floor, if we did that there. The upper floor, for Personnel, in particular, I would like to turn that into a testing area. They do the continuous recruitment, there’s a bigger room upstairs, that we could do a lot of that onsite. Right now, we do a lot of that up at the Public Safety Building, but you lose that employee for a week at a time, when you’re doing these exams, that has to go there and monitor. By having that onsite, it’s just a little more productive, you only have another, typically 5-7 people scheduled at a time when you’re doing those exams. So, you don’t need a real huge space. So, I think there’s a lot of opportunity there to do and then backfill as we go. Bill Tansey, you’ve all seen his office, so I want to get some of the IT people out of there and in here, that would allow Bill to have the space right above our heads. So, there’s been a lot of thought put into it, but some of it’s going to piecemeal, Steve, one department at a time, because when you’re juggling too many balls, it gets convoluted and crazy and try and do that backfill is hard.

MCNALLY: This is a different topic, should we run a feasibility study of a new Social Service building, while it’s fresh in our mind?

MASCARENAS: I’ve got one, it’s old, it’s about 7-8 years old now. So, what would really change is the cost.

MCNALLY: And possibly how the funding would work.

MASCARENAS: Yeah, it’s a deprecation model for DSS, it’s how they fund those types of projects. The issue that you’re going to have onsite, is….

MCNALLY: Well, I know someone who’s going to take care of that for us.

MASCARENAS: So, right, today, we likely, wouldn’t be allowed to do it.

MCNALLY: Because if anybody hasn’t ever been through Social Services building, it’s a terrible work environment over there.

MASCARENAS: It could be a great building, you need swing space to get people out, so that you can do the proper rehabilitation that you need to do to that building.

MCNALLY: There are electric heaters and you know, it’s not a great facility. If we can get a new building, cost shared, it might be time to share thinking about it.

DOUGAN: So, we started the interior demolition, we requested that proposal. We need to finalize that conceptual and then we’re going to bid out the building materials, ourselves, so that we bring those in here. We’re going to do as much as we can with it, over time. We will probably have our term contractor, general contractor do certain things for us. They’re going to be a lot more efficient, for example, at tape and sheetrock than we are. We know that, we’ve done that in other buildings, where we’ve done a lot of work and they come in and do that, and they put in an acoustical ceiling, which needs to be fairly square and fairly flat and so, but those are, we’re finishing that conceptual drawing, that I kind of put up of the 1^st floor here, that one area to the south, this side being Personnel.

And then just our overall list of projects that we’re tackling, it’s hard to see here, but if you see blue on that, that means it’s already been complete. So, the bid date, we’ve got bids on most of these things that we were planning on doing this year, already done. So, we’re already buying materials, we’re already trying to be ready for the year. Now, it’s just getting contractors or ourselves to be able to tackle most of those specific projects.

That’s all I really have.

MCNALLY: Anything else for, Jimmy? Alrighty, thank you.

AS THERE WAS NO FURTHER BUSINESS TO COME BEFORE THIS BUILDING AND FACILITIES TASK FORCE, IT WAS ADJOURNED AT 9:54 AM

Respectively Submitted,

Dina Garvey, Deputy Clerk

Board of Supervisors