Residents want architect to pay for elevator mistake at Meredith police station

Several residents last night told the Board of Selectmen it should hold the Hollis-based architect of the new new police station under construction on Rte. 3 North responsible for the cost of upgrading a lift for the two-story building to a commercial grade elevator. Construction Manager Andre Kloetz (Bauen Construction) told the board the net difference in price was $33,891, plus an amount for revised wiring.

Referring to a report that David Udelsman's firm had overlooked an "obscure" provision of the Americans with Disability's Act (ADA), when advising selectmen last winter that a "limited access, limited application" (LULA) lift would suit the building just fine, Dave Sticht told the board, "I think he's responsible, he should now the codes".

Richard Juve told the board he was "appalled" by the mistake. "The ADA has been around a long time," he said before suggesting the architects professional "errors and omissions" insurance policy should pick up the tab.

At the end of what was at times a very tense discussion, board Chairman Peter Miller asked Town Manager Carol Granfield for her professional reaction to the citizen's complaints and she responded that she would have to look at the provisions of the contract the town has with Udelsman before commenting. "There is no generic way to react to this," she said.

Pat Mack said she was amazed to learn that "no one has already pulled the contract to see if we have any recourse".

Earlier, Mack got the ball rolling from the audience by asking, "If somebody screws up, who picks up the bill?"

On July 24, Selectmen Frank Michel and Peter Brothers had reacted angrily to Granfield's initial report that $37,500 was going to have to be taken out of the building project's $60,000 contingency fund to pay for the elevator upgrade. Kloetz and Udelsman were at last night's meeting to provide more detailed information and, in Udelsman's case, an apology.

Kloetz began by noting that, overall, only $23,443, has been drawn from the contingency fund for the $2.297-million project to date because, among other items, a less expensive option had been found for building the holding cells that was going to result in a savings of some $7,500. Of the extra cost involved in upgrading to a commercial elevator, he suggested that Meredith taxpayers would have paid for the upgrade under any scenario, because if the mistake in specifications had been caught before a guaranteed maximum price was offered and accepted, the price would had to have been increased to account for the upgrade.

"We were interested in trying to save the taxpayer some money," Kloetz said, before adding he personally considered the upgrade to a commercial elevator "a waste of money".

LULA lifts are fully enclosed and operate automatically, with the push of a button. Designed for buildings with four or fewer floors, they are somewhat smaller and slower than conventional elevators.

When drawing up specifications for the Meredith station, consideration was given by all concerned to the fact the shaft for the lift was going to be placed behind a secure door so that it would not be possible for someone to just walk into the building and proceed to the second floor. Very little need was forecast for the general public to travel up to the second floor.

Udelsman told the Selectboard that after the original specifications were drawn, one of his staff members discovered that an exemption from the ADA requirement for commercial elevators — for smaller, shorter buildings — does not apply to new municipal buildings. He said it was fortunate the error had been caught before applicable construction work had already been done for the LULA lift.

Brothers was by far the harshest critic of the situation among the board members. Noting that a contingency fund was supposed to be used for unanticipated expenses, he said, "this was not unanticipated". "This doesn't sit right with me," he added. "We employ experts. . .I'm disappointed."

Michel, on the other hand, urged everyone to "keep our powder dry", adding the the police station was a big project that was really just getting underway. He described his initial reaction to the problem as more of a reflex to what he read as the "ho-hum" attitude Granfield used to deliver the news. "It caught me off-guard," he said, "like it wasn't any big deal."

Kloetz said the overall project, which got started late because of a holdup in securing the necessary wetland disturbance permits from the state, is now two weeks ahead of schedule. Police are expected to be able to move into the 12,520-square-foot structure by the end of February.

During a mid-winter review of the bids that had come in on the various aspects of the project, Kloetz told selectmen that Udelsman's firm had done such a thorough job preparing all the specifications it had made the bid process proceed very smoothly.

NOTES: Town Manager Carol Granfield informed the board she had received a verbal communication from the New Hampshire Electric Coop advising that the cost of electricity provided to the town was going to increase by some 30 to 40-percent before the end of the year. The budget implication of that dramatic increase was not immediately available. . . . . .Granfield also reported that only 281 property taxpayers had thus far asked for a "informal hearing" into their preliminary new assessment numbers. Vision Data Technology has expected that as many as 1,100 (20-percent) of the town's property owners might ask for a review of their situation before the August 18 deadline.