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Brainerd City Council: Council OKs facility study

It was unorthodox, but the Brainerd City Council Monday night accepted a proposal for a comprehensive facilities study for all city facilities. In August, the council directed city staff to issue a request for proposals for a comprehensive city f...

The front of Brainerd City Hall, located at 501 Laurel St. Spenser Bickett/Brainerd Dispatch
The front of Brainerd City Hall, at 501 Laurel St., in this file photo Spenser Bickett / Brainerd Dispatch

It was unorthodox, but the Brainerd City Council Monday night accepted a proposal for a comprehensive facilities study for all city facilities.

In August, the council directed city staff to issue a request for proposals for a comprehensive city facilities study. The goal was to get an estimate for how much a study would cost, so the amount can be included in the budget for next year.

According to a memo from City Administrator Jim Thoreen, requests were sent to six entities. One company, Widseth Smith Nolting in partnership with Contegrity Group, returned a proposal.

The proposal includes a cost of $77,640. The city had budgeted $30,000 for the study, based on Thoreen's previous experience with a study in Pope County.

The personnel and finance committee, on a split vote, recommended approving the proposal. Council member Sue Hilgart, who was the dissenting vote in the committee meeting, said the council already knows what facilities to focus on. The focus should be on city hall, she said, and specifically on fixing the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or Heating Ventilation, and air conditioning system, as well as the front steps.

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"Not to say that we can't benefit down the road from a thorough review, inventory, planning for the remainder of our facilities," Hilgart said. "But this year, we know that the first priority has to be city hall."

At this point, the city doesn't know what it would take to fix the existing HVAC system, City Engineer Paul Sandy said. A new controller was added to the system recently, he said, but that is the only change. Another person evaluated how to fix the current system, he said, but there's no plan for the best HVAC option for city hall.

"Is it to fix what we have, or is it to completely gut the place and redo the whole system with something more efficient?" Sandy said.

Council member Kelly Bevans has been a supporter of the facilities study, he said, but he agreed with the idea city hall should be the priority. He asked Sandy if the city could solicit a proposal on known repairs, like the HVAC system and front steps at city hall.

"I would feel a little more comfortable moving forward on that little piece of the pie, before we have a building that's unusable," Bevans said.

An HVAC contractor would have to evaluate the system, Sandy replied, and he doesn't know what the evaluation would cost.

There are similar HVAC issues at the Brainerd police and fire departments, Finance Director Connie Hillman said. At the fire department, employees sometimes hang a bag of ice from the thermostat to regulate the temperature in a room, she said.

The proposal came back higher than what the city budgeted, council member Gabe Johnson said, but the study is still needed for the city to plan for the future. In the past, the city guessed at HVAC fixes, he said, at one point estimating the cost at $800,000.

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The motion to accept the proposal failed on a 3-4 vote, with council member Kevin Stunek, Johnson and Council President Dave Pritschet voting for the motion.

After the motion failed, Bevans made a motion to respond to the proposal to ask for a smaller study. The smaller study would only evaluate the HVAC systems at city hall and the fire and police departments, as well as the city hall front steps.

"We have some needs," Bevans said. "We'd like to have someone qualified look at these needs and put together an estimate as to what it would take to fix them."

Johnson called the smaller study a gigantic waste of money. If the smaller study was completed, the city would most likely do a larger study in the future, he said. The larger study would evaluate things already reviewed in the smaller study.

Mayor Ed Menk asked Sandy if there could be issues from doing multiple smaller studies instead of a larger, more comprehensive study.

There are more than just HVAC needs at city hall, Sandy said, like space issues and wiring concerns. There are also issues with compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. A comprehensive study might reveal a more efficient layout for city hall, which includes a different HVAC system, he said.

The city is going to end up doing the study anyway, Pritschet said, and it's going to cost more to break it into pieces.

Bevans ultimately withdrew his motion to look at the cost of a smaller study and then made a motion to approve the proposal for the full study. This time, the motion to approve the comprehensive facility study proposal from WSN and Contegrity Group passed on a 5-2 vote, with council members Dave Badeaux and Hilgart voting against the motion.

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