Council approves change orders for remodeling project

The Fremont City Council on Tuesday approved a series of change orders for the Christensen Field Event Center remodeling project, but not before grilling the architect about a $5,714 change order for revising electrical service to the kitchen.

A staff report by Parks and Recreation Director John Schmitz encouraged Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture to reimburse the city the change order amount due to their error in the specifications.

The city has a contract with Fauss Construction as the general contractor, but the architect was hired by the Christensen family in connection with a private donation toward the project, city officials explained.

Mike Thompson of Alley Poyner Macchietto admitted the change order was the result of an error on architectural drawings, but disagreed that his firm should be held financially responsible.

The change order refers to some outlets that need to be added that were not included in our drawings, but are required to operate the ovens that are part of the project, Thompson told the council. I do not have an excuse why those outlets were not included, but these are costs that you would have paid regardless because you would have had the cost of an outlet to power your ovens.

Mayor Scott Getzschman and several council members said they were frustrated about paying for a change order to correct something they said should have been included in the original specifications.

I dont know who you hired for the electrical engineer on this project, Getzschman told Thompson, but I will tell you that the bulk of our change orders on this project have been electrical, and its very disturbing to me and to this project and to the city that we have to go through this because, in my opinion, your electrical engineer was asleep at the wheel.

You get paid to do a service, council member Todd Hoppe said to Thompson. That way we know the cost so we have the money to do this. We rely on that information, and when we dont get the proper information from you, you need to open your wallet and give back.

Other change orders, such as replacing the roof and a change in hand dryers, were made at the request of the city and Christensens, and some changes are to be expected when unforeseen problems pop up in a job, Thompson pointed out.

You could not foresee those, Hoppe told him. You could foresee this one though, thats the difference.

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Council approves change orders for remodeling project