The Aquatic Center: "Will Haste Make Waste"?

---
Last week we posted: Oro Valley Approves Added Funding For Aquatic Center.  This was a press release from the Town of Oro Valley.  The Town Council, after a lengthy and often confusing discussion,  unanimously approved a 43% increase in spending on the town pool renovation just to get what they thought they were going to get in they approved the initial $3.45 million in spending. (Note: Also see an Arizona Daily Star article)

The council was "between a rock and a hard place".  They had no choice but to approve the added spending.  There is a swim meet scheduled for the fall. There are no further council meetings until  September, thanks to Mayor Hiremath.  The five on council when the initial spending was approved had committed that this would be a first class facility.

Part of the increase in cost is due to the requirement of Pima County that pool be 2-feet deeper, requiring a change in the decking, totaling about $1 million.  Pima County use to own this pool!

The other part of the increase, the part that the council literally had to identify during the meeting, was to put back into the project items that Greg Caton, Town Manager, had "value engineered" out of the project:

• $126,000: Family changing room
•   $50,000: Scoreboard
•   $89,000: Shade structures
•   $79,000: Decking

 The council was surprised to learn that these items had been deleted from the project.

There was one addition to the original project: A 3-meter diving board at a cost of $42,000.

The council not only approved the funding requested, but they added to it in order to retain these items.

We understand that Greg Caton advised Commissioner Legner to "value engineer" these items out in order to reduce the additional amount requested.  Taking major items out of the pool renovation project is a council decision. It is not the decision of a town employee.  Shouldn't they have requested the Mayor to hold a special session of the town council to discuss the situation with the full council?  

The discussion of the request was insanely confusing. Watch the video.  Numbers are tossed about with abandon; and with no relation to what the final product will actually be.  In addition, at no time was there any discussion of whether the numbers being "tossed around" for one item or another had  validity.

The discussion was clearly the product of "tired minds."  The meeting was already four hours into a five hour marathon when the topic was discussed.  At one point, Council Member Snider asked the same questions regarding what was included or not included in the facility as other council members had already asked thirty minutes prior!  At another point, Council Member Hornat spoke to Director Legner asking:

"We sat down individually...with Ainsley and with Town Staff and went through these numbers. Tonight, we come to council for direction and we get  a whole different set of numbers and we get a whole different set of things that were not included in those meetings.  Should I go get the picture [of the proposed facility] so you can point to that, and show us what we're not going to get and what we're going to get now that you value-engineered this?  'Cause that's what we promised to deliver and I want to know what it's going to cost to deliver what we promised the Community cause that's what this is about: What we promised the community." 

Clearly frustrated, Council Member Hornat, placed the responsibility for the confusion on Director Legner. He is only partially correct.  Some of the responsibility falls on Town Manager Greg Caton, to whom Legner reports.  Caton advised Legner to "value engineer" out certain items.   Finally, some of the responsibility should be shouldered by Mayor Hiremath for not being "on top of" the biggest project the town has undertaken in many years and for jamming such an important topic into a five hour meeting.

Mayor Hiremath: "Haste makes waste" Mr. Mayor.

Let's hope that in their zeal to get this right, the Council was not inadvertently forced into making wrong decisions based on bad information or withheld information.  Let's hope that the Mayor's desire to cram everything he can into fewer meetings, causing marathon sessions, did not substantially reduce the quality of the council's decision-making.

There are other issues, issues regarding funding of the project on which we will focus in a future posting.
---