New Council Chambers to be Completed by May
Easton City Council unanimously voted to move forward the project at at cost of $155,620
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Easton City Council will be meeting in dedicated chambers again by May 1.
Council voted Wednesday night to approve four contract agreements totaling more than $155,000 to remodel space on the sixth floor of the city's Alpha Building into city council chambers, a permanent office for the city clerk and other meeting space.
Work will begin within two weeks and is due to be completed by the end of April, Mayor Sal Panto said.
Kunzman LLC will be paid up to $75,375.60 for general construction, West Side Hammer Electric will be paid up to $38,645, and KC Mechanical will be paid $32,000 for HVAC services and $9,600 for fire protection construction services.
The job was originally sent for bid in the fall of 2010, but the estimates were too high and council rejected all in favor of rebidding the project. Total estimates for the project were in the range of $280,000 and more than the council was willing to spend, Panto said.
Being more specific about what the council expected and thinking more economically reduced the estimates by more than $100,000, he said.
“We scaled some things back. We had to do away with a decorative ceiling tile,” he said. He added that lengthening the amount of time for the project also reduced the price.
“We gave them four months to get it done, 120 days,” Panto said.
The four contracts reflect most of the cost of the project, he said, though a bid for video projectors and speakers for the new meeting space is expected later this month. Panto said it is expected those items will cost an additional $4,000 to $5,000.
The city council formerly met on the fifth floor of the Alpha Building. The space is now leased to a private company. Panto said the 5-year lease generates $80,000 per year for the city.
In other business, the city council unanimously voted to amend the 2011 Salary and Wage Resolution by deleting one Laborer and two Driver I/Laborers from the labor pool and add two equipment operators to the highway bureau and one Driver I/Laborer to the bureau of parks and recreation. The salary of a laborer in the labor pool will also increase from $18.09 to $18.45 per hour.
The change is not expected to significantly affect city salary costs.
Carole J. Heffley
4:16 pm on Thursday, January 13, 2011
In a time of economic stress, city council paid for new construction to make a new office? AND had to give up decorative ceiling tiles? What a pity! It is good that a private company is now paying rent for the previous Council space on the 5th Floor but the expenditure has already eaten up more than 1 year's worth of rent! At least the first high price was voted down.