The Cook County Board of Commissioners took the plunge on January 25, 2011, approving The Meyer Group and JLG Architects to design the new community center/pool complex to be funded with 1% sales and use tax revenue. This means the City of Grand Marais will no longer participate in planning or funding the facility because of a contractual agreement it has with Burbach Aquatics.
Several years ago, Burbach did a feasibility study for the city on options for rehabbing or replacing the aging pool in the Grand Marais Recreation Area, and according to the city’s legal counsel, it cannot participate in a pool project that does not include Burbach.
The city has been providing the majority of funding for operation and maintenance of the current pool, which has been seeing losses of over $200,000 a year. Pool proponents believe the amenity is an asset worth the cost, but the community’s ability to operate and maintain a new pool is being considered by those involved in planning it. “We’re not going to build something that we can’t afford to operate and maintain,” Commissioner Sue Hakes said at the meeting on January
25, 2011.
Tom Wacholz, president of ORB Management that has been hired to oversee the project, said The Meyer Group will be the “architect of record” and will be bound to creating an “operationally feasible” design. The Meyer Group’s architectural design will not project staffing costs, but ORB will do that so the county can decide what it can afford to maintain, Wacholz said.
County Attorney Tim Scannell gave the county board the thumbs up on the contract that had been drawn up with The Meyer Group. “It doesn’t look onerous to me in any way,” he said. “It seems like a good agreement.”
The Meyer Group will subcontract with other firms with a variety of specialties. Attorney Scannell said he did not know of a lawful process that could have ensured the involvement of Burbach Aquatics so that the city could participate in the project.
Commissioner Jan Hall said she considered the city’s legal obligation to Burbach Aquatics “not a very responsible act on their part.”
“I think that it is incorrect to assume that they do not want to participate,” said Scannell. They don’t believe they are able to participate, he said. Grand Marais City Administrator Mike Roth concurred.
Commissioner Bruce Martinson said he had been told that the city might be able to help fund non-pool portions of the facility. Roth countered by saying that despite what Martinson may have been told, the city is unlikely to be able to participate in any way with the project.
Commissioner Sue Hakes, who was involved in the project when she was mayor of Grand Marais, said she hopes this can change and would like to see the county and the city discuss the matter. “My sincere hope is that the city can resolve this issue and come back to the table…” she said.
The city would welcome any discussion related to becoming involved in the project again, Roth said.
The Meyer Group had proposed a payment of 5.75 to 6.25 percent of the total cost of the project, but the county board approved a motion to hire them at the rate of 5.75 percent. The project is expected to cost between $8 and $12 million.
Steering Committee formalized
The board spent some time discussing the role of the steering committee that has already brought the project through much of the pre-design phase. Bylaws, which had been drawn up to formalize the operation of the committee, state that the committee was formed “for purposes of obtaining input from the Cook County community and providing advice and recommendations to the board of commissioners. …The Community Center Steering Committee shall facilitate dialogue regarding [the] project and all related issues with the public and with any governmental units involved with the project.”
“I really strongly believe that citizen participation beyond the county board is vital,” Commissioner Fritz Sobanja said. He mentioned the fact that Commissioner Hakes had been voted chair of the committee and took issue with this because of her concurrent decision-making role as a county commissioner, although no one else on the committee had been interested in the position. “Why can’t some other member of the public step up and take on these responsibilities?” he asked. He said he thinks validation from the community is important to this project.
Hakes agreed with Sobanja regarding the importance of keeping the community involved and said she intends to keep this an “open and transparent” process. “I really feel energized by it and I really think I can do the job,” she said.
“I think she’ll do a wonderful job,” Commissioner Jan Hall said.
Current Community Center Director Diane Booth said she has been concerned about transparency as well and would not want to be involved in the project if the community didn’t want the new facility. “I’m not going to stand for something that’s not going to be approved by the community.”
The committee will have 15 to 18 members, including the community center director, one representative each from the Community Center Board of Trustees, ISD 166, Community Education, and Orb Management, and two representatives each from the county board and the City of Grand Marais. The other six to nine members can come from the community at large. “I think we’ll be a good team,” Booth said.
The board unanimously approved the bylaws.
The Meyer Group, approved by the county board to create the architectural design for the new Cook County community center/ pool facility, will be hiring the following subcontractors:
. Aquatics design:
Water Technologies Inc.
. Civil engineering:
Mateffy Engineering
. Structural engineering:
Northland Consulting
Engineers
. Mechanical engineering:
Dunham Associates
. Electrical engineering:
Dunham Associates
. Interior design:
Isola Design
. Food service:
DHA Associates
. Landscape architecture:
JLG Architects
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