Make Sure You're in the Saddle...

The first meeting of  the newly elected city council was held last night. We had some lively discussion and interesting moments as we started our new term together. Wally Heitman in his Mayor's Report mentioned his hopes for more civility and wishes for all of council to work together for the benefit of the community. I thought Wally did quite well in his first meeting. I heartily agree with his sentiments and will continue to do all I can to make it happen.

The title of this post is the first half of a quote attributed former UH City Councilor Yon Schoenmaker. The last half of the quote is

...Before You Apply the Spurs!

We seemed to have a case of that as the very first council item on our agenda was to discuss hiring a project manager to oversee the construction phase of the One University Place Project. I find this to be a very interesting way to start our term.

One University Place (OUP for short) is a private development built on private property. As such this project is subject to all of the requirements of any private construction. Inspections are a vital and continual part of the process. The good news for us, is the the City of U-Heights has an excellent building inspector. He holds more certifications than any other building inspector in Johnson County, and is recognized as one of the best in the state of Iowa. He also works for the City of Iowa City and has had much experience in very large projects over the past five years, Plaza Towers, Park@201 downtown etc. and the University of Iowa Fire Inspector routinely consults with him for advice on how to conduct inspections at  Hancher, the Music Building, Peterson Residence Hall among others. 

Regardless, there will always be inspections at OUP that he is not licensed to conduct, and those officials who are qualified have already been identified and utilized as needed. Our inspector is the one who already certified the building plans, and awarded the initial building permit. He is very familiar with the project.  

Despite this, there is interest on council in hiring an independent project manager to oversee construction. This would have to been done at additional cost to the city. No other community around us does this for a private project. Project managers are typically used only when it is a Municipal project, and the city is paying for the building. 

Fortunately our inspector was at our meeting last night so he could introduce himself to the city councilors who had never met or talked to him. I asked how often he stops at the OUP site and his answer was typically 4 times a week. He also said that when the weather was better he stopped as often as 3 times a day. I asked if there had been any problems or issues with inspections he has already conducted and the answer was no. My very strong impression is that this project is very well supervised and is within the time and technical abilities he has to devote to this.

A fellow councilor said he "knows a guy," recently retired, who would be well qualified to be an independent project manager for us. For our February meeting we will be informed as to details of the job, availability and price. Given the fact several times later in the meeting there were questions about bidding all work to be done for the city to ensure good pricing, we might want to consider that too.

My thought right now is that spending city resources on a job that won't improve results, or solve with a major problem, is going to get us thrown off the horse.