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Assembly Updated on Long Term Care Facility Plan |
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Friday, 31 August 2012 |
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The Kodiak Island Borough Assembly can look forward to being very busy in the coming months. The assembly met with Borough Attorney Cheryl Brooking last night during a work session to discuss the plan of attack for approving and building the Long Term Care Facility near Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center.
Brooking presented the plan to assembly members, and stressed the tight timeline the borough is working with.
Many of the decisions regarding the facility will be brought to the
assembly during a future meeting, but Brooking helped explain other
items that the assembly will have to decide on, like approving a
contract for a construction manager.
-- (LTC Plan 1 : 48
"Rather than just go with a low bid contractor, this is a construction
manager that is hired at the beginning and works with the architect,
the engineers, through the initial phase of the project, at that point
provides a guaranteed maximum price. At which time the assembly would
either accept that and go forward, or the project stops. There's a lot
of stop go places here, that's one of them there. If that guaranteed
maximum price is acceptable, then the next phase of the contract is
entered into. The construction manager then is responsible for hiring
all the subcontractor, you have one contract with the construction
manager, who then handles all of it basically from start to finish.")
The stop/go points that Brooking refers to means if various items,
like the price of the project, were not approved by the assembly, then
the project would cease to continue. Another point that this possibility
arises is on the hospital side of things. Providence must acquire a
Certificate of Need for the facility, which is anticipated to be
obtained in the coming months.
The seemingly small possibility
that the certificate will not come through was not OK with assemblyman
Mel Stephens. In fact, Stephens said he wasn't necessarily on board with
the project in general, based on the short timeline brought before the
assembly.
-- (LTC Plan 2 :59 "I think this project is
unrealistic. I do not think it can be done within the time frame that
you have. I do not think the KIB has the staff qualifications and
expertise to pursue this. Now I realize that I was on the minority in
voting against going ahead with the design of this. I will just say well
I don't intend going around trying to block everything. I am not going
to vote for something that I think is going to endanger the KHS project.
And right now when I look at this, the high school project is in bad,
bad shape now. It looks to me like we're about a year behind time. And
here we're talking about oh this thing has to be done in the summer. So,
fine, well I see the nice diagrams and one thing or another. There are
lots and lots of things that I worry about on this, and I'm not simply
going to rubber stamp something that's put in front of me.")
No
decisions were made during the work session and ultimately, portions of
the project will require a public hearing and be put to a vote by the
assembly. The building, if built, will be owned by the borough, but
leased to Providence. That lease contract is still being negotiated and
must be approved by both the borough and Providence.
Another
item that will allow a public hearing and be brought before the assembly
again is the potential for covering the cost of construction through
bond sales.
If all goes according to plan, the Long Term Care
Facility is expected to be built and operational by January 1, 2014,
which leaves about a year for assembly decision making and construction.
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