Board of Aldermen 8-11-2020 Page 9
is good as | understand it, we don’t necessarily know if any changes to the scope of service have been
made. If like they didn’t add the elevator or any changes like that. So being generally briefed on what we
are being asked to vote on, is at least courtesy, which | agree we should be extended a little bit more
carefully in the future. But | am not inclined to hold this up because the Public Health Department is
extremely important especially now, they have long been overlooked. Their needs are not ambitious, they
are pretty humble. They are looking for a handicap accessibility and facilities that are capable of handling
the kind of work that they do. So | appreciate that we are actually able to address this at a time where
Public Health’s Mission is at the forefront of what our City’s activities are. | don’t want to hold it up, | want
to make that we get this done.
Alderman Tencza
Very briefly Madam President, so | believe Director Cummings sent us all a Memo on this back on July 27"
which stated that the scope of work was not going to change whatsoever with this new price. And then we
also received it in the packet that Ms. Graham sent out to us. So we have had ample notice, | mean | think
anyone who would want to ask Director Cummings questions about any of this had the opportunity to do
so. They could have put what they found on the record here tonight | think we have spent several minutes
talking about this when there has been opportunity to get this information beforehand. So | would hope that
we can move forward with this tonight and save some money for the City on this project. Thank you.
Alderman Lopez
If | could follow up? | just want to clarify that my point was more than we are not causing a delay when we
ask for information. We are just doing our due diligence and that should be something that City
Departments are happy to do. In this case they did it, everything should be fine and we can move forward
But as a general rule of courtesy, we should be briefed on everything we are doing and that is an
expectation that all Aldermen should have that they are reviewing these processes.
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. | just wanted to point out that you know the change to a contract was a little bit confusing for
me and | wanted to look at the original contract to see what might have changed. Unfortunately, when |
went to look at the original contract, | found that none of 2020 contracts are currently on the City Web Site
and | reached out to a couple of people about that so that | could prepare for this evening, but haven’t
received a response. So | think that’s a broken link or just something for the efficient, you know, that
should be corrected so we can review the contracts that you know — do the research. But if itis justa
matter of we now have a guarantee and that is the only difference is that now they are guaranteeing us that
there won’t be any changes to the price? Is that correct?
President Wilshire
That’s the — what did he call it? Guaranteed Maximum Price.
Steve Bolton, City Counsel
Madam President, | can probably answer that. Right now you’ve got a contract which calls for a price that
we won't go over. That can be amended by change order in the future as well. So if something is found
that needs to be corrected that no one currently knows about, it could be that there will be a further change
order that adds $10,000.00 or $20,000.00 or whatever number. So it is guaranteed in this contract, but it
does not mean that this contract can’t be amended to include additional work that is not now anticipated.
Alderwoman Lu
Just a follow up, it has been my understanding, so when we enter a contract with, when we enter a contract
for work for the City, we don’t necessarily know what the true price will be?
