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MINUTES
BOX ELDER COUNTY
COMMISSION
APRIL 12, 2005
The Board of County
Commissioners of Box Elder County, Utah met in a work session at the County
Courthouse, 01 South Main Street in Brigham City, Utah at 8:00 a.m. on APRIL
12, 2005. The following members
were present:
Scott Hansen Chairman
Clark N. Davis Commissioner
Suzanne R. Rees Commissioner
LuAnn Adams Recorder/Clerk/Surveyor
The following items
were discussed:
1. Fairgrounds Grand
Stand – Commissioner Rees
2. Assignment Review –
Commissioners
3. Staff Reports
4. Correspondence
The work session
adjourned at 8:59 a.m.
The regular session
was called to order by Chairman Hansen at 9:00 a.m. with the following members
present, constituting a quorum:
Scott
Hansen Chairman
Clark N. Davis Commissioner
Suzanne R. Rees Commissioner
LuAnn Adams Recorder/Clerk/Surveyor
The prayer was
offered by Commissioner Rees.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
THE MINUTES OF THE
REGULAR MEETING OF APRIL 05, 2005 WERE APPROVED ON A MOTION AS WRITTEN BY COMMISSIONER DAVIS, SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER REES AND UNANIMOUSLY CARRIED.
AGENDA: ATTACHMENT
NO. 1
FOLLOW-UP BUSINESS
Chief Deputy Lynn Yeates asked the Commissioners permission for Carol
Loosli and William Burns to attend court security training in Reno, Nevada May
17-21.
MOTION: A motion
was made by Commissioner Rees to
authorize the travel for Carol Loosli and William Burns to attend court
security training in Reno, Nevada from May 17-21 at a cost of $1,720.00. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Davis and unanimously carried.
Victim Advocate
Grant – Amy Hugie
MOTION: A motion was made by Commissioner Davis to approve the signing of a Victim Advocate
Grant Application and authorize the chair to sign the application. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Rees and unanimously carried.
MOTION: A motion was made by Commissioner Rees to cancel Commission Meeting on May 10. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Davis and unanimously carried.
JUSTICE COURTHOUSE
COMMITTEE REPORT & RESOLUTION – GARTH DAY
County Planner Garth Day said over the last few weeks we have been going
over the more specific numbers for the Justice Court project and working
through the planning process with Brigham City. Mr. Day then gave the Commissioners an update of where they are
in the planning process. He said we
have received the site plan review approval from the Brigham City Planning
Commission subject to several parking issues that they are working
through. He said they had to do a
subdivision amendment putting the Justice Court on its own parcel of ground for
bonding purposes. That has been
completed and we are waiting for the final step in front of Brigham City
Council. The jail alleyway vacation was
kind of related to the subdivision amendment and that was completed last
Thursday at the Brigham City Council.
The subdivision amendment can now happen and everything will start to
fall into place on that side. He said
we are working through the parking issues with Brigham City staff and their
Planning Commission and will have that resolved very shortly. Mr. Day said the item that is before the
Commission today is a resolution that supports the Justice Court project and
authorizes the moving forward of it.
In the resolution it outlines some functions that are important to give
direction to the staff.
Garth said Layton Construction proposed lots and lots of value
engineering, and the County decided that some of those were not a good value
for us in the long run or didn’t meet our needs for a number of reasons. This resolution appoints Donnie Tarver,
Building Official, as the Project Manager.
Donnie’s role will be to oversee the daily operation of the construction
itself. He is authorized to
approve minor change orders under $5,000. Garth said in the process all change orders, whatever they may
be, will be subject to the Committee’s review and then anything above that will
come to the Committee and then to the Commission. The resolution authorizes the Financial Advisor and County
Auditor to amend the parameters resolution to include the maximum updated
guaranteed price of the project. He
said if this resolution is adopted that could possibly be before the Commission
next week. It also reaffirms our
relationship with Layton Construction.
After all of our discussions as a Committee and a Commission, the
consensus is that Layton Construction is the best fit for our needs and will
probably do the best job.
Donnie Tarver explained they tried to eliminate things that were not
necessary at this point and felt that some wouldn’t change the structure or the
cosmetics of the building.
Commissioner Davis said Layton Construction presented a laundry list of
total items that could potentially be modified, deleted or restructured in the
amount of $844,000. Some of those
included eliminating half of the second floor and eliminated excavating the
basement. The Justice Court Committee
went through that list and recommended elimination of $182,650 worth of items
from that list of $844,000; however, in trying to address primarily the
security concerns and the IT concerns in terms of wiring the new building,
there were add backs for voice and data cabling and add backs on the security
system that totaled $101,000. The net
affect was only an $81,000 improvement for value engineering benefit from the
work that the Committee did; but the Committee got more of the proper blend of
the things that we want in terms of addressing the security issues and
eliminating some of the cosmetic issues.
That was the net result of the Committee’s recommendations, and we tried
to provide these to the Commission last Friday so that they would have the
weekend to review these and go through individual line items. Donnie and Garth also put together the
summary of the discussion that was completed by the Committee as to why we
decided not to go with the recommendation or possible deletion that Layton
Construction suggested.
Commissioner Rees said they did a good job of going through and trying to
explain the expenses. She pulled up the minutes of the work session of March 22
and three times in this particular meeting, it was recommended that we put
making a decision on hold for 90 days until we find an answer to all of our
questions. Another step that Garth
brought up was the final steps with the Brigham City Council working through
parking issues. There are still a lot
of questions out there that are not answered.
She said one of the biggest questions that came to us is security and
the new personnel that will be needed to be hired for security and the concerns
that the Sheriff’s Department had on some of the security issues in the new
building. She is not sure that we are
ready to move forward if we have not resolved all of the financing issues. She would still like to see the finances
that we will be using towards the new court.
She does not want to see us go out for a bond and build a new building
and then follow with a tax increase to staff the new building. She said we need
to address the safety in the new building.
MOTION: Commissioner Rees made a motion that we
follow what came out of our work meeting from March 22 and put the project on
hold for some time and continue to get the answers that we need. The motion died for lack of a second.
Commissioner Davis said we are going to continue to have unresolved
questions as we move forward in this process.
The adoption of the resolution does not finalize anything, but it
continues us moving forward with the process.
He said we would continue to address the issues on parking, security,
staffing and utilities as we continue to move forward with the process. The only thing that the resolution does is
it is reaffirming the relationship with Layton Construction, lets our bond
counsel and our financial advisor Jon Bronson come back with a modified
parameters resolution, and appoints Donnie Tarver to be our project engineer to
work with Layton Construction. The
Committee, working in good faith, has come back with the proposal that we adopt
this resolution.
Judge Christensen said he has spoken with Sheriff Jensen a couple of
times and the feeling is that even if a building were to not be built and
continue with the court the way it is, because of how busy we are, and how busy
the district court is, they are looking at increasing bailiffs anyway. They would like to continue to rotate the
bailiffs through the new court rather than putting dedicated staff there.
Either way they are looking at an increase whether we get the building or
not. He said it was felt that the
security personnel wasn’t an issue as to whether the building should be built
or not, but that it was something that could be worked on later or even play it
by ear. We put a couple of people in
there full-time and maybe only hire one full-time person and see how it works
rotating them through and play it by ear down the road. He feels it is not something he can solidify
right now and know for sure that we need this many people. It is his feeling that we continue with the
project the way it has been proposed, and just look at those issues down the
road because no one knows for sure. Sheriff Jensen said those are his feelings.
Donnie Tarver said one of the reasons this resolution is important for us
is not the fact that if we sign this resolution, we will go out and dig a hole
this afternoon. He said we need to have
this resolution signed so we can go back to the engineer and architect and tell
them that we are moving forward. Lets
finish everything up, lets get the spec books done and start addressing some of
the issues with Layton Construction and start moving forward in that
fashion. He said if we don’t we would
lose our window of opportunity until fall which would create additional costs
to build the building. Lets move
forward with the project the way it was originally received so that we can
start some of the groundwork. He said
we are still 6-8 weeks out before they come up with the actual final detailed
drawing and spec books. This resolution
will move us forward.
Judge Christensen
said we are always talking in tentative terms that this doesn’t quite commit
us, it doesn’t mean we are going to dig a hole. He said if the resolution is passed it does mean digging a hole. He said we do not want to be six months down
the road and still be talking about something that we still need to get done
before we dig the hole. We want to get
it passed so we can get building the building because future costs are going to
get more and more expensive. Layton
Construction
told everyone
that. He hopes that we are all looking
at this with the goal that if it is passed, we really would be digging a hole
as soon as possible and getting this building going. He said we are pretty close on knowing the cost, knowing that
there were some costs that came in that surprised everybody. The Committee has worked through
everything. They have gone through the
building from top to bottom over and over again and worked at cutting out any
fluff that might be there. There just
isn’t anything there that can be cut out any more. I guess we are to a point where we either need to decide if we
want to do it, and there are a couple of unresolved issues. There will be something that comes up every
week that Donnie will have to deal with.
That is the way it is with building a home or any project; and he is
hoping that if this is passed, we really do it with the intent of getting this
building going and really go forward with our goals of having a secure
courthouse, secure public and meeting the goals that we set forth a couple of
years ago. He thinks that we are to
that point. He is hoping that it will
be passed today so that we can really start building the building.
Commissioner Hansen asked the question as to how much money has been
spent up to this point. Garth Day said
that to this point we have spent upwards of close to $200,000.
Commissioner Hansen said if we don’t pass the resolution today, we would
stop everything until we get a couple of answers and we would have no funding
to do it. Garth said if we don’t adopt
the resolution, there is nothing that can be done. The architect is not going
to start including some of the changes because he does not know what everybody
wants. Layton Construction is still
held in limbo. We have a time limit
with them; their bids are only good for a certain period of time. If we delay making progress, it will end up
costing us more. Some of the sunken
costs that we have will not change, but Mr. Day thinks the reason we came up
with the idea of delaying it up to 90 days is because we had some real issues
with the construction manager/general manager process. Donnie felt like it could possibly take us
90 days to resolve. He said we are past
that, and there is really no reason to delay much longer since we have
addressed the issues.
Commissioner Rees read from the work session minutes, “He asked the
commissioners to hold off for 90 days to address issues. Some of the issues that need to be addressed
are the community and parking as well as other things.” She said it wasn’t just the building
itself. There are issues with the
community and parking, and Garth stated here today that the parking issues have
not been resolved. Commissioner Rees
said another reason that it was recommended we delay for the 90 days is that we
make sure how much money is actually coming in and what it is going to cost us
to build this building. The delay was recommended that we figure in the cost
for the extra employees. Commissioners
Rees feels some of these have not been resolved yet. Commissioner Rees said one of the things was the utility issue
with Brigham City. Garth said the
utility issue has been resolved now.
Roger Handy said we have set aside $168,000 and we have appropriated
$170,000 up to this point. Some of the
communication with the community is still causing us a lot of stress there.
Commissioner Davis reminded everyone the minutes that Commissioner Rees
is reading from is in a work session.
He said in a work session you end up talking about pros and cons of
every issue, and
we tried to debate those back and forth.
There is no action taken in a work session. There was no formal motion that we postpone or wait or suspend
for 90 days. That was not the
case. There was discussion about the
possibility of postponing, delaying or holding off. Our primary concern at the time was the concern over what we
perceive as a bait-and-switch issue with Layton Construction. We spent a lot of time reviewing that
budgetary process with Layton Construction.
The Layton people came in two subsequent meetings to resolve those
issues. Even though there are a lot of
ancillary issues, there will always be ancillary issues in a construction
project this large. In a work session
we are always going to have debate back and forth on both sides of the
issue. We are reviewing those concerns
that were voiced. The primary concern
was our relationship with Layton.
Commissioner Davis said we feel much better having met with Layton and
gone through that discussion. There was
no motion or action taken in the work session, as there cannot be one.
Commissioner
Hansen said we discussed the 90-day issue in that particular work session. It is his understanding at the time that we
still have to work through the various issues that we have like parking,
utilities and those kinds of things. He
said it appears that utilities have been worked through fairly well. The parking---he said we cannot stop and
expect those kinds of answers to come without some process of proceeding to get
those answers. In Commissioner Hansen’s mind we don’t really go final on this
project until we authorize the funding.
He said he would take the Judge to task a little bit on this one. We can move forward, but he said we couldn’t
begin the project until we authorize the funding. The funding is going to be different than it was when we
started. That is basic to the scoping
process. He said we are not very good
at building courthouses, we have not built one all year or last year or the
previous year. We are on a learning
curve and we are doing as well as we can.
We are not doing much differently than anybody else. It is a scoping process. It never ends up like it starts because of
various problems that you are just not aware of that somebody has in the back
of their mind. He said we do need to
proceed. He does not think this is
final approval and shouldn’t be given that way. The main problem that
Commissioner Hansen is having is that he is getting an awful lot of phone
calls. The first thing that he says is
that he is not chairing this particular process. Commissioner Davis is the chair and you should be talking to
Commissioner Davis and the folks on the Committee. He is getting some feedback that some of the folks are not being
talked to. We have not had a public
hearing on this, and he is not so sure that kind of communication works in our
best interest for us or for the community itself. He would like to see the community a little more apprised of
where we are going on this. He wishes
that some of this had taken place upfront so that the folks around the
community understood some of the kinds of things we have already decided on or
worked our way through. He does not
want to micro manage the project from the chair. He wants to leave decisions with the Committee and Commissioner
Davis to oversee. He would like to see
the public engaged a little bit more.
He said it will make our job in the long run better and we will do a
better job for the community. These are
not our dollars that we are spending; these are tax dollars we are spending for
the benefit of the taxpayers.
MOTION: A motion
was made by Commissioner Davis to adopt
Resolution No. 05-07, in conclusion the resolution that the Building Official
for Box Elder County be appointed as the Project Manager, that the Financial
Advisor and County Auditor amend the parameters resolution and bring that back
to us and that we will reaffirm our relationship with Layton Construction under
the CMGC arrangement. The motion was
seconded by Commissioner Hansen and
carried 2-1 with Commissioner Rees voting
nay. There was the following discussion on the motion:
Commissioner Rees pointed out that in accepting the Resolution; we are
accepting that we move forward.
Commissioner Hansen said we are progressing, but we are not committing to
an end product at this time. It is not
until the dollars are tacked on which is the next resolution. That is the yea or the nay of the
project. He said we have to adopt this
resolution to keep the process going; otherwise, the process stops and the
issue is dead.
Commissioner Davis explained that the funding resolution is attached with
the recommendation from the Committee of $182,000 reductions and $101,000
add-ons. We have an opportunity to address
those individual issues and we will go back and work with Jon Bronson, our
financial advisor, for the funding to support the recommendation from the
modified pick list.
Garth Day said the parameters resolution will come back to the Commission
and if it is adopted, there is a notice period before we can move towards the
closing.
Commissioner Rees said we still have to find out if we have the dollars
in place to pay for it. How much money
is coming in to the Justice Court and what we are going to do in our own budget
for the loss of revenue that will be taken out and what we are going to do to
pay for the extra employees. These are
the kinds of costs that Commissioner Rees would like to see firmed up.
Commissioner Davis asked that Roger Handy give a report back next week
concerning the dollars that have been spent.
Commissioner Davis explained that we budgeted on a monthly basis what a
projection was from the security surcharges that would total $168,000 for the
year. It is misleading to say that we
set aside money. He said we earmarked
future dollars that are being received on a monthly basis through security
surcharges that amounted to 1/12 of $168,000 per month. That is what has happened. We earmarked these dollars in our budgeting
process. The $168,000 is what we
projected would be available in the current year from interest revenues from
security surcharges. We will need to
get a firmer figure from Roger Handy on what we have actually expended.
Commissioner Rees said we need to see once we get the bond if we are
going to have enough money to pay the bond.
She said if it goes beyond the money that we talked about coming from
the surcharge which is $22.00 from the county ticket or $6.00 from a city
ticket then this means that we are going beyond the money that we originally
talked about, and that is what kind of a bond we are going to be able to
secure. We need to understand that
upfront financially too.
Commissioner Davis explained to Commissioner Rees that the financial part
will be the next step.
Garth Day said all
the costs that have been sunk into the project from the architect and engineer
will all get reimbursed to the County through the bond proceeds. They are all
included as part of the project costs.
He said most of the $168,000 that has been spent has gone to
architectural engineering fees.
Commissioner Hansen would really like to make sure we get some form of
commitment to engage the public a little bit more so they are apprised of this
project and understand and are getting the information on this.
The warrant
register was signed, and the following claims were approved for payment: Claims number 36773 thru 36846 in the amount
of $159,655.54. Claims number 36847 thru 36873 in the amount of $319,157.51.
Claims number 36874 thru 36953 in the amount of $208,142.25. Claims number
25475, 29963, 31472, 32905, 34383, 34780, 36344, and 36800 were voided.
PERSONNEL ACTIONS –
COMMISSIONERS
COMMUNITY DEVELOP: Elizabeth Ryan Jeppsen, compensation change, effective 04/06/2005
ASSIGNMENT REVIEW -
COMMISSIONERS
The Commissioners reviewed assignments.
ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made
by Commissioner Rees to adjourn. Commissioner
Davis seconded the motion, and the meeting adjourned at 10:00 a.m.
ADOPTED AND
APPROVED
in regular session this 19th day of April 2005.
_______________________________
Scott Hansen,
Chairman
_______________________________
Clark N. Davis,
Commissioner
_______________________________
Suzanne R. Rees,
Commissioner
ATTEST:
_________________________________
LuAnn Adams,
Recorder/Clerk/Surveyor