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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20090702 1 APPROVED 8/18/2009 MINUTES SPECIAL MEETING Orange County Board of Commissioners Link Government Services Center July 2, 2009 3:00PM The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a special meeting on Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 3:00pm at the Link Government Services Center, to discuss proposed renovations with staff of the Link Government Services Center. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Valerie P. Foushee, and Commissioners Alice Gordon, Barry Jacobs, and Steve Yuhasz COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Vice-Chair Mike Nelson, Pam Hemminger, and Bernadette Pelissier COUNTY ATTORNEYS PRESENT: John Roberts COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: Interim County Manager Frank Clifton and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker (All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) NOTE: ALL DOCUMENTS REFERRED TO IN THESE MINUTES ARE IN THE PERMANENT AGENDA FILE IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE. 1. Opening Remarks— Chair Valerie Foushee Commissioner Foushee called the meeting to order at 3:10pm and said three commissioners could not attend this special meeting, Commissioner Nelson, Commissioner Hemminger and Commissioner Pelissier. She said as Chair she would inform them of the discussion and any outcomes. Commissioner Foushee turned the meeting over to Corley, Redfoot, and Zack architect Ken Redfoot to make his presentation. Commissioner Jacobs asked if the Board could add a closed session at the end of the special meeting to discuss a personnel matter and all agreed. 2. Items for Discussion a. Link Center Renovations Discussion — Pam Jones and Ken Redfoot Ken Redfoot said the Commissioners had received by email this week the three proposed options for the renovations to the Link Government Services Center. He said 2 he will go through all of these options and he has also developed a "fourth option – option D" on the location of the meeting room and he will be presenting that today. Commissioner Foushee asked Pam Jones to review the history of why they were meeting today. Pam Jones said at their places was a copy of the June 23, 2009 abstract/memo (yellow) detailing the timeline, process and preliminary planning for the design and construction of the proposed renovations to the Link Center. She said the Board had previously approved and provided funding for the renovations and remodeling at the Link Center. The work and funding for such is scheduled to occur in two phases. Phase I is limited to the installation of a sprinkler system in the building and office remodeling for the County Commissioners' administrative offices, County Manager, County Attorney, Human Resources, Financial Services and Budget offices. Completion of this work will allow the Government Services Center—Annex to be reallocated, per Board action on June 2, 2009, to the Board of Elections; and for the Board of Elections to make an orderly transition to their new space in tandem with the November Municipal elections. Phase II completes the renovation of the building and develops a Board Room in which County Commissioner meetings will be held. The room will be designed to employ up- to-date technology, including that needed to provide dissemination of televised meetings to the Public. She said the Board had approved the following guiding principles at their June 23rd meeting: • The Link Center's current floor plan is to be used with as little modification as practicable while maintaining efficient departmental operations. • Costs are to be contained to the extent possible while still delivering operationally functional space. • Work would not exceed $425,000 for Phase I as cited in the June 2, 2009 approval. • Work would not exceed $575,000 for Phase II, which under this proposal includes development of facility conference rooms, as well as the Board meeting room and technology associated with its operation. Pam Jones said that in the June 23rd materials, there were designated steps to achieve and that the Board was at Step 3: • Step 1: Agree to complete the project in two phases: o Phase 1—development of office space for the Clerk to the Board and County Commissioners, County Manager, County Attorney, Human Resources and Financial Services and Budget Office. This phase will also include adding a fire suppression system to the building as required by Code. o Phase 2—development of the Board meeting room and facility conference rooms on the lower level of the building. • Step 2: CRZ will meet with departments to complete the information needed to establish a preliminary program and floor plan for the Link Center. 3 • Step 3: CRZ and staff would meet with as many Board members as chose to attend a meeting by early-July. This meeting would be designed to bring the Board up to date on the work thus far and would include program information for each department and in general would identify where in the building their offices would be located. This meeting would not address specific office locations within the departments. Commissioners unable to attend would be provided meeting notes and handouts from the meeting. The outcome of this meeting would be to obtain agreement on the elements such that CRZ could work with department directors to specifically lay out the office space within their department and proceed to develop documents from which the job could be priced. Pam Jones said today that all the Commissioners needed to decide was where all of the departments would be located in the Link Government Services Center — and then the architect would begin working with each individual department on their particular designs for their departments. Ken Redfoot said that they would first discuss the location of the BOCC meeting room. He said there are two options: • Land Records/GIS area with seating area for 126 OR • Newly proposed — Register of Deeds area with seating area for up to 200. Commissioner Gordon asked the square footage of these two options. Ken Redfoot said: Land Record/GIS—4424 sq. ft Register of Deeds—5527 sq. ft. Ken Redfoot said there would be some costs differentials with using the Register of Deeds location with the need to move the location of the bathroom areas to the other side of the lobby area. Commissioner Yuhasz asked about a media room in the meeting area and Ken Redfoot said there were spaces on the peripheral of the room that could be used for a media room. Commissioner Gordon asked about the need for a good presentation area. Ken Redfoot said with the columns located in strategic areas of the room, he would suggest the usage of monitors to be mounted on these columns for the public to view presentations. All of these details would be worked out in phase two. Commissioner Gordon asked about the low ceilings and how they affected the suitability of the space for a meeting room. Ken Redfoot said he would suggest hiring an acoustical engineer to come in during the phase 2 design process to review the needs for a meeting room, since they cannot change the height of the ceilings. Commissioner Yuhasz said the Register of Deeds area offers more meeting space and seating for the public and he supports this area for a BOCC meeting room. Chair Foushee asked the Board's preference and all 4 Board members agreed upon the Register of Deeds area for the BOCC meeting room since it offers more space. 4 Ken Redfoot proceeded to go through the various options before the Commissioners for the location of the proposed departments going into the Link Government Services Center: • Option A: o First Floor: County Attorney's office and training room in Register of Deeds area; BOCC meeting room in Land Records area o Second Floor— Human Resources in Tax Assessor location area, Financial services in Revenue area; County Manager and Clerk to the Board stay in their same location • Option B: o First Floor: Clerk to the Board and proposed Training Room would be in the Register of Deeds area; BOCC meeting room in Land Records area o Second Floor- Human Resources in Tax Assessor area; Financial services in old Revenue area; County Manager and County Attorney would be on other side of building (where Clerk and Manager are now) • Option C: o First Floor: Human Services and Proposed Training Room in Register of Deeds area; BOCC meeting room in Land Records area o Second Floor: Clerk to the Board in the Tax Assessor area; Financial Services in Revenue area; County Manager and County Attorney on other side of building • Option D- meeting room in the Register of Deeds area (the Board agreed upon this area); this option would locate the County Attorney and a Training room on Level 1; and Human Resources/Financial Services along with the County Manager and the Clerk to the Board on Level 2. Commissioner Jacobs suggested another option for location of departments in the Link Government Services Center: • Option "E": o First Floor: BOCC meeting room in Register of Deeds area; Human Services and Proposed Training room in Land Records area. o Second Floor: Clerk to the Board/County Attorney in the area now occupied by the Manager and Clerk's offices; and County Manager in the Tax Assessor space; and Financial Services in the Revenue space. Discussion ensued among Commissioners and staff about all of the above options and option "E" was the most favored option. Commissioner Gordon said that she would want the Manager and the Clerk to the Board to be on the same floor, and preferably on the second floor and this option would serve that purpose. 5 Commissioner Jacobs said that it would also be helpful to put a placeholder on the location of offices for a Sustainability Coordinator and a PIO. Pam Jones said with all of this discussion and a decision, Step 3 has now been completed and now they can move forward to Step 4, with the other steps to follow: • Step 4: CRZ completes office remodel design; BOCC reviews final. Pricing begins • Step 5: Pricing is completed and appropriate contracts presented to BOCC on August 18 for approval. • Step 6: Notice to Proceed issued effective August 19, 2009, with completion anticipated no later than October 16, 2009. o County would serve as our own general contractor on Phase I and retain the various services we would need to carry out the work. Except for the sprinkler system installation, the bulk of the work will be carpet, painting and minimal general contract work to move or construct new walls. There will be no structural element involved in this phase of the renovation. • Step 7: GSC-A departments are relocated as the work is completed at Link. This means departments will move in phases as their space is completed. • Step 8: Office upfit is completed at Link no later than October 16, 2009 and all departments have been successfully relocated from GSC-A to Link Center. Commissioner Gordon asked about the specifics for the design of the office spaces/floor plans and Pam Jones said they hope to have those to the Commissioners within the next couple of weeks for review. Commissioner Gordon asked to make sure there was a Plan "B", to allow more time for renovations if for some reason the move to the annex for the Board of Elections (BOE) does not take place in time or other unforeseen obstacles occur with the upfitting of the two facilities, which might result in the BOE losing the $25,000 in grant money for certification of the voting machines. b. Tour of Facility— Link Government Services Center The Commissioners and staff then proceeded to tour the first floor of the Link Government Services Center to look at the proposed meeting room space. c. Closed Session A motion was made by Commissioner Gordon seconded by Commissioner Yuhasz to go into closed session at 4:35 pm for the purpose of: 6 "to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment, or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee" NCGS § 143-318.11(a)(6) . VOTE: UNANIMOUS The Clerk, Manager or Attorney did not attend this meeting. Commissioner Jacobs took the minutes. RECONVENE INTO REGULAR SESSION A motion was made by Commissioner Yuhasz seconded by Commissioner Gordon to reconvene into regular session at 5:00pm. VOTE: UNANIMOUS 3. Adjournment A motion was made by Commissioner Yuhasz seconded by Commissioner Gordon to adjourn the meeting at 5:00pm. VOTE: UNANIMOUS