Atherton will redesign its civic center

The key essential item that was MISSING from the bidded design was a new earthquake resistant communications tower like both Menlo Park and MPFPD have built. A Town Center without the ability to communicate during and after a disaster would be an empty shell.

On November 9, 2016, Rick DeGolia stated, on these forums:

"This has been a totally cost-focused project. The design is functional and efficient. I believe that it is as good as it can be within the cost constraints. We will build a civic center: police station, admin facilities and library for the cost of 2-3 houses that you see going up every month. We are also moving roads to make this a people, not automobile, centric town center. The allegations of this being excessive are made by posters that have an agenda, rather than information. They haven't been involved in the process."

Link:

Web Link

Yet now, the same people who fumbled this project allege:

"We should make some hard decisions on this project now and recognize there's a lot of nice-to-haves that we'll have to skip at this time."

So this begs the question, why in November 2016 was DeGolia insisting there were no nice-to-haves, and anyone alleging the center was excessive had an agenda? Was he lying? Or was his judgment seriously impaired?

More lies and more mismanagement by this town council:

* Continuing to use the same consulting group that fumbled the bid, instead of firing them and demanding the taxpayers' money back. CHECK.

* Continuing to pledge fealty to Elizabeth Lewis, afraid to vote against her, the most you will get is in abstain? CHECK.

* Continuing to hold the library hostage – even though money is and has been available to build it for years – while they figure out how to build stuff we can't afford, and all the while the build value of those funds decreasing day by day? CHECK.

Hey DeGolia, take some stock of yourself and your decisions. Your past statements are outrageous. They show you are out of touch with what's going on. Build cost of two to three houses?!

Management, if we don't take stock of ourselves and our decisions every day, then we are seriously missing something. I do that both personally and as a member of the council. Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm right, only that I work hard to pay attention. On my quoted statement, you are right, there is an error. The projected design cost for the admin/police building was about the cost of 2-3 houses being built in Atherton today. I was wrong to include the library in that statement and there were "nice-to-haves" in the library. That is because we felt fortunate to have the currently banked library tax funds and we wanted to use all of those funds. There are components of the library design that could easily be cut, but the bids came in at 140% and 170% of estimate. That is a disaster for this project. I believe that we should remove the library nice-to-haves and start library construction since we have those funds.

Where are the errors on the main portion of the project: the admin/police facility? I think that there were many, but maybe the most challenging was trying to bring in this project on budget when there was no room for error financially. The key failure there was sticking to the project when the fundraising only raised $6.5m of pledges and they had a target of $25m. The square footage of this facility is no different from what our admin and police have today. I don't think that the design has nice-to-haves, but we could remove the lobby and the council chambers. The council can meet at the pavilion in the park. But this wouldn't bring the project within budget. At least not based on those bids. I don't think that we can build this facility without raising funds and bidding it in a manner that will get more than 2 bids. I continue to think that our community wants a new civic center. It just isn't reasonable to have our employees working in 7 temporary buildings. We've talked about this for more than 20 years. I will continue to work for this. Maybe that is out of touch, but I continue to believe that if we are going to the enormous effort of building something, it should be something that we can be proud of and that will indeed help us attract and retain exceptional staff.

Well stated Rick - thanks for the posting.

And make sure the new facility has a new earthquake resistant communications tower like both Menlo Park and MPFPD have built.

Rick, why are you still insisting the admin/police building didn't have "nice to haves".

Full gym for police officers? That's a necessity? Much larger neighboring cities don't have it.

Only way to remove excess is to cut the lobby and council chambers?

I'm starting to agree with MISmanagement. I don't think you're being realistic or very honest about where the current design stands.

I'm not saying that there are no nice-to-haves, it is a judgment and we are dependent on recommendations from consultants that work on police facilities for a living. There isn't a "full gym" in the design. There is a Tactical Training room. We're not talking equipment that you find in 24hr Fitness, it's a space to engage in tactical training. They have this now in a garage off of the police secured parking area. We are told that it is necessary and that makes sense to me. We need our officers to be able to deal with physical problems which includes self-defense, fire arms training, etc. and some of that requires a space in Atherton. No doubt that includes weight training. I'm not sure what else. I don't see that as a nice-to-have, but everything should be up for discussion. The design includes two small rooms where someone could sleep, which seems essential when you have officers driving 1.5-2.5 hrs before and after a 12 hr shift. You may see those as nice-to-haves. I believe that the new plan is to move them (and the tactical training room) out of a down-sized main building and into a separate ancillary building/garage in the secured parking lot (making that separate facility into 2 stories rather than 1 story as currently planned). The entire design will be reconsidered.

More mismanagement. Police officers and their union WANTED and achieved 12-hour shifts through negotiations so they get large stretches of time off. Now that they got them, they are arguing that the town's tax payers have to make special accommodations for these 12-hour shifts like free housing and sleeping quarters in the town center. Just switch back to normal shifts!

12 hour shifts are totally unnecessary. They have been negotiated by the APOA for longer periods of off time. If they don't want to work 12 hours they can go back to shorter shifts. It's not complicated. Shorter shifts means no one needs to sleep in Atherton rather than going home. 4 10's is a nice compromise.