09/27/2004 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Regular Council Minutes 9-27-04 Page 26 Mr. Saponaro said I think everyone's ears kind of stood up when it was intimated that we don't know if that is necessarily up to code in terms of the buildings. So that was also brought out in Finance. I think that kind of perked some ears up and said we need to look at it from that perspective. My biggest concern was more of a let's look at it from a global standpoint and make sure that we are not shooting ourselves in the foot in the short term if we are trying to achieve whatever goal we are going after. Mayor Rinker said without sounding callous, at end of day we can break a lease and we can pay those damages if that is really what it comes down to but ultimately we are going to make sure that we control the facility. I do not want to be cavalier about it. Council President Buckholtz said I would like to mention because I know Dr. Parker mentioned it over here, when I first spoke with Lloyd about this, my first response was where were you 2 weeks ago when we finally had our first wide open conversation about the Civic Center and what is coming. Where he stated it tonight I would just like to restate it, they had been looking at this several months and said it wouldn't work. Then all of a sudden they came back and said it would work. But I have a question or two in regards to it. When they are using it, are they using it in its entiretyor, no-they are just using some classrooms in the basement but they are using the main auditorium. Mr. Chapman said on Sunday mornings they propose to utilize the main room they used to call the sanctuary and then following that church service, they propose to utilize the Fellowship Hall area (the first room on the right as you enter from the west side) and 6 other spaces; 5 of which are located in the basement and one up on the second floor. We carefully reviewed with each of the department heads who are slated to have offices in there and other issues related to security, locking up our areas and keeping those spaces separate from what they might be using, availability fora 12-month period and much to my surprise, it all worked out very nicely. I thought it was an interesting opportunity for us potentially to give them a chance to be more comfortable over a period of the next 12 months; better meet their needs over the next 12 months and certainly offset some of our costs. Mayor Rinker said just let me make one comment on that. I am assuming that if and when, when we get serious about renovation of the Fellowship Hall to turn that really into our Council Chambers, sound, equipment all of those features, that is a real investment and a lot of the discussion we had as Dr. Parker pointed out, we really should look at getting someone in professionally, either through architecture, construction manager, project manager of some kind so we really do look at a more sophisticated assessment of that aspect of it. But otherwise what we are looking at are pretty nuts and bolts issues as I say, HVAC, roofing and the office spaces that are there from what Bernie and John have said really do not require a whole lot of major work to make them very usable for us. Then I think we'd look in the long run at anything that is going to be a big expenditure. It is going to take a couple of years to get something projected for any substantial renovation of that facility. Council President Buckholtz said the other quick question I had and I had asked Lloyd about, was say we started to renovate or once we start renovating Fellowship Hall and then we wouldn't be able to-I mean putting in a sound system or tearing down a wall if somebody is leasing it. Mayor Rinker said no, I do not think that is going to be a problem.