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Show AMERICAN FORK CITIZEN Page 3 Thursday, December 6, 2007 A n rrr f-t -i 9 IIP ; 1 , -- ' j ' ! ' ' I J .!f - ' jf ' ' I ( ..,: ..'.; .. '!: i"""- ' ' JIB . . I : 1 ' w ' . -. -mr- - -?!" ' I I mimrarty- ' 1 - ' i Jp""m i in i in mi. ii ii .hjii --txn--- f wwwj a - -i - , v i I !-r .4 , l,i h Vr - . . , , : J II h'J ill . ' :; i-1. ft 1-1 " ' ;:rr" I, ' ' ' ' ' ; : J I 1 Construction workers exit the ommission weary of Joe Pyrah DAILY HERALD The devil's in the details, and county commissioners are finding themselves in minutiae hell as they sign off on cost overruns for the jail expansion, right down to the wiring for the toilets. On Tuesday the commission unanimously approved an additional addi-tional $30,000 for low-voltage wiring of the commodes, but not without first complaining that they would have rather voted the other way. $ IP A IM 0 S IHl IF O IK fi lrw ii j wqI n icm i $3i flip art 0U mm f ') " " - - -- f .. . ... . .- Yin, .m rw 4 If ' ' J S ,Jjmmw jyu wgg" If ; a ,--. :. . "i i ii 4 rr-ytti-; , , - .. . - . , L COPY1! new buiMing under construction "We can't open up a new jail segment without toilets," grumbled Commissioner Steve White. Auto-flush toilets are needed so inmates can't break off handles from traditional-style toilets and use them as weapons, weap-ons, and the wrong kind of wiring was written into the jail's design. Cost overruns are a given in just about any large project, but the jail expansion is "right at the max," White said. That maximum is about $2 million that has been set aside for ex at the Utah County Jail in Spanish Fork on December 4, 2007. pected overruns. An engineering shortage was blamed for similar problems earlier this year, but the commission com-mission is showing its teeth this time around. In Tuesday's meeting, White suggested that the ongoing problems with the jail should be handled as a litigation litiga-tion issue in a closed session. "At some point we'll discuss that. I'll just leave it at that," he said later when asked to clarify his comments. County public works director direc-tor Clyde Naylor said that the toilet problem was an "omis delays in jail expansion sion to the construction documents docu-ments that is being rectified." Oversights on the $20 million mil-lion project include a lack of a holding area in case of a fire, Sheriff Jim Tracy said. "You can't just say 'Get out and come back when you don't see smoke anymore,'" he said. And then there were the cell doors. About 70 doors showed up, without windows or ports where inmates stick their hands through to be handcuffed. "That was a big snafu, and that was not our bad," Tracy said. MARIO RUIZUaily Herald The doors had to be sent back and reordered. Also problematic for Tracy is a completion date that's on the lam. The most optimistic of projections projec-tions was for a September 2007 completion. More realistic was November 2007. But the new optimistic date is March 2008, which pushes the retrofitting of the old part of the jail into June or July. White and Tracy say part of the problem is that there aren't any deadlines written into the jail contract. Larry Ellertson, the county commissioner over public-works, public-works, said there's plenty of blame for the jail problems. The county probably should have been more careful with the contract, and the engineering engineer-ing firm should have done a better job with design. "We've got the issues we're dealing with, and we need to learn from this experience as we go forward," he said. "I'm sure that there's fingers pointing point-ing both directions." |