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Minutes of the Combined Caucus/Council Meeting 6-11-07 Page 19 the project on the advice of Phil Brett, the Finance Director. Law Director Joe Diemert concurred. We have $150,000.00 slated for this project right now. It is in a fund dedicated to this project. If it is the will of Council to proceed as we have been hoping to turn the sanctuary into a full performing auditorium, we are prepared tonight to change that amount from $300,000.00 to $150,000.00 and pass the motion not to exceed $150,000.00. The department heads involved, Ron DiNardo and John Marrelli in particular, have agreed to notify the contractors that they can only encumber that much money to start the project. Phil is confident that we have the funds in other accounts but for legal purposes we would have to transfer those funds into the appropriate account to pay for the additional project which we should be able to do . next month. We have gotten Mr. Marrelli to say that this can be a functioning room September lst. Mr. Marrelli stated that we are hoping it is done by then. Mayor Rinker stated that Council President Buckholtz approached him a couple of weeks back indicating that he would like to put this more on fast track. He could not agree more in principle, only because we have been looking at this component of the renovation pretty closely for about the last year. But Mayor Rinker would add this caveat: All things considered, we have had very good success in moving incrementally in the way in which we have made the improvements in this entire facility. We have had to do a lot of things that are invisible as well as the cosmetic and other structural changes that we have made. His concern is that we provide a facility that residents are going to enjoy, will take a look at and say, wow, they have really done a good job. So far, we have demonstrated that. Mayor Rinker xecommends that we keep to a conservative number and a conservative course. We have beeri very fortunate that Rick Hall has been fiere extensively. We have had a number of instances where pieces and parts of the renovation has been done, such as the sound system in here, when Bill Buckholtz was able to steer us toward someone who charged only $15,000.00 for what is now really a very satisfying sound system. Doug can tell you that we must have spent many times over the past five or six years consulting with different people. We had numbers that were much much higher and no real solution in sight. Patience and perseverance. There are certain timetables we want to meet. We know there are some events that are coming up. We want to encourage what has been going on with Fairmount. Mayor Rinker's concern is that we really sharpen the pencil and look to the basic components. We can add to this project as we go along. Such things as the seats, everyone would agree it would be nice to have a great set of auditorium grade seating. Do we need it now, can we wait until later? Questions like that. We have certain cosmetic features. We have to deal with sound. We have to deal with lighting. We have to deal with the staging. The barebones ABC's components. Mayor Rinker requests that Council be attuned to that fact. We will get there and will get it done right, but Mayor Rinker likes the fact that we have been very very attentive to getting down to details and making sure that we are really not being extravagant. We will be able to accomplish both. Council President Buckholtz added that we had an architectural plan in here for over $2 million. So, by comparison, we have really done a good job. Mr. 1Vlarquardt stated that he is concerned witli some of the comments overheard during` fhe Finance Committee meeting that this is not all of if. They do not have the estimates for the entire job beyond the $300,000.00. We are moving ahead authorizing $300,000.00 and we only have