LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council on Tuesday awarded a contract to a Middletown company to complete accessibility upgrades to the city’s historic Carnegie Library.
The council voted unanimously to award the contract for the Carnegie Library Accessibility Upgrade Project to R&C Construction, which was the low bidder at $385,381, well below the city engineer’s estimate for the project was $425,000. The second bidder, FRC Inc., came in at $479,000.
The Carnegie Library opened its doors on Feb. 18, 1918. Built in Classical Revival style, it served as the city’s library until 1985. Since then it has served at various times as a city and academic facility. For several years it has sat empty.
The city has had plans and studies completed for the building, including a feasibility plan finished in 2015 by Garavaglia Architects of San Francisco, the firm which also designed the building’s accessibility improvements.
The contract bid the council awarded on Tuesday will provide Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant access to the building, including an elevator to provide access to the second floor, remodeling of both bathrooms on the first floor, making one ADA compliant, and installing new water and sewer lines.
Community Development Director Kevin Ingram said this is the third construction bid the city had sent out on the project.
The first was released in June, at which time the city received one bid totaling nearly $500,000, more than twice the city engineer’s estimate at that time, Ingram said.
With staff believing that the elevator portion of the project was dissuading bidders, they sent out a second request for proposals just for the elevator and received no bids, he said.
He said the city engineer and design consultant spent significant hours reaching out to contractors to rework and send out the latest request for proposals, which drew the two bids, including the winning bid from R&C Construction.
“The costs are escalating,” Ingram said, an issue which he attributed to the improving economy and the region’s wildland fires.
Ingram said that rebuilding in Santa Rosa has hurt the city’s ability to get contractors.
The project will be covered in part by a Community Development Block Grant that the city received and was able to get an extension on due the project not being completed by the initial deadline, he said.
The Community Development Block Grant is funded by money that comes in from payments made from previous loans – primarily business loans – made by the city, Ingram said.
City Manager Margaret Silveira said the item is budgeted, and there is about $250,000 that can be used toward the remodel, putting the city about $140,000 short.
She said the city has applied for another grant but they don’t know if they have it. “So there is a decision to be made by the council,” she said.
Silveira said the bottom floor under where the elevator will be placed has been dug out. However, when the city had trenches dug for the bathroom remodel, they discovered that all of the 100-year-old concrete has to be jackhammered out.
She said the city had more than $2 million in reserves if the council was OK with dipping into them. The project also can be added to the list of Measure Z sales tax expenses for the coming year.
Councilman George Spurr asked when the work would be done. Ingram said the contractor would aim to have it complete prior to October.
Because of last year’s flood, which put the city behind, the state granted the city more time to complete the library upgrade project, Silveira said.
Ingram said the elevator will result in most of the construction, noting the overall project isn’t that large.
As it stands now, Silveira said the building is unusable to the public, and after a number of public meetings community members made it clear they wanted to be able to use the building again.
Councilman Kenny Parlet was concerned about cost overruns by the contractor, having noted a number of them on the project history provided in the bid document. Silveira said the contractor and its subcontractors are all local.
“I just want to feel comfortable that the number is the number,” said Parlet.
Ingram said he could vouch for City Engineer Paul Curren’s work on the request for proposal, which he believed would make cost overruns very unlikely.
Councilwoman Stacey Mattina said the library is an important community project that the city has to see completed. She supported using reserve funds, noting costs are going up.
Community member Suzanne Lyons said she likes old buildings but thinks the library is unusable, and that the council needed to look at what the building will be used for when it’s done.
Wilda Shock, chair of the Lakeport Economic Development Advisory Committee, or LEDAC, also addressed the council.
LEDAC worked on the library’s feasibility study, the lakefront revitalization plan which calls attention to the building’s use, and the city’s economic development strategic plan, with Shock noting that the latter plan has the library as a central building.
“All of those plans and the work in developing them were part of a public process with public input along the way,” she said. “And I think the overwhelming feeling that came out of those public meetings was the desire of the community to save, preserve and use the Carnegie Library building and make it a point of interest and a point of public use in the city of Lakeport.”
She said the city doesn’t have many historic buildings that they can point to with pride, and while the library has problems, Shock said they’ve been made known and there are ways to address them. She believed there would be community support, adding that fundraising can help address upgrading the building.
Shock said the building offers a sense of place, and the upgrade should be completed.
“If we're ever going to move, we need to move now,” said Parlet, noting that the building is an important part of Lakeport.
Parlet moved to award the construction project bid to R&C Construction, with Mattina seconding and the council approving the motion 5-0.
The council also held a public hearing and voted to approve changes to the city’s ordinance regarding the Park and Recreation Commission in order to establish a monthly meeting schedule and allow for one at-large, non-city member from the 95453 zip code.
Commissioners told the council at its Feb. 6 meeting that they wanted to meet monthly, not quarterly, and the majority of council members were willing to go that direction.
Parlet said he felt it would give committee members an opportunity to meet often, and the council can revisit it if it doesn’t work out.
“I think that they will go the extra mile to prove that it is necessary,” Parlet said.
City Clerk Kelly Buendia said the city has received five applications for open seats on the commission. Silveira said there are plans to interview all five.
The council’s vote was 4-1, with Mayor Mireya Turner concerned that the changes were not necessary after reviewing a year’s worth of commission meeting minutes.
At Tuesday’s meeting the council also met Bonnie Sharp, the new permit technician.
No reportable action came out of the council’s closed session regarding negotiations with Lake County Tribal Health for property at 902 Bevins Court.
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022018 Lakeport City Council agenda packet by LakeCoNews on Scribd