Ralph Sicuro called it “one of our more disgusting ones.”
At a special meeting earlier this month, the president of International Association of Firefighters Local 1 was before City Council with a slide show of black mold, faulty plumbing, sewer backups and leaky roofs at a series of city firehouses when he stopped on Engine 19 in Swisshelm Park.
“When they flush the toilet, raw sewage comes down from the toilet above and runs down the wall,” Mr. Sicuro said.
The meeting, which also featured testimonials from the heads of the city’s police and paramedics unions on dilapidated stations, came on the same day as an executive order from Mayor Bill Peduto pledging an additional $1.6 million in critical building repairs. The order laid the groundwork for a long-term plan to address the roughly 300 structures the city is responsible for maintaining.
Still, given the conditions at some city public works, police and fire facilities, Mr. Peduto’s administration has caught some flak for more than half a million dollars in spending on office renovations, including new furniture, window shades, paint, carpeting, flooring, equipment and appliances, across several department offices. Those include the mayor’s office, Parks and Recreation and Innovation and Performance in the City-County Building on Grant Street, as well as the Ross Street offices of the Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections. The Office of Municipal Investigations was also moved from the Strip District to newly renovated offices on the ninth floor of the City-County Building at a cost of about $26,500. All told, the price tag was about $565,360.
City Councilwoman Darlene Harris has long blasted the renovations as a luxury at a time when other city facilities are crumbling and questioned using city Public Works Department employees to perform some of the labor.
“All their other work went to the side when they were doing that,” she said.
City officials could not provide figures for how many Public Works hours were used in the renovations, though the mayor’s office noted that the $51,808.45 spent on chandelier refurbishing, new paint, carpeting, floor repair, molding and other work across the mayor’s suite of 24 offices or conference rooms was accomplished “with in-house labor at no additional cost to the city.” Kevin Acklin, Mr. Peduto’s chief of staff, and Mike Gable, the Public Works director, said in separate interviews that the work did not prevent city workers from addressing needs at other city facilities.
Mr. Peduto’s office says $232,120.60 was spent on new carpet, furniture, construction, paint and furnishings for the sixth-floor offices of the Department of Innovation and Performance, formerly City Information Systems. Invoices provided by the City Controller’s Office show tens of thousands in spending on workstations, conference tables, chairs and other furniture and equipment. A single order of more than $23,500, one of several furniture orders, for example, included lounge-style pieces that cost the city more than $700 each, ottomans that cost more than $300 each, and a workstation-credenza set that cost more than $980.
The city spent about $212,382 on renovations to the fourth floor of the City-County Building that included moving the Department of Public Safety down from the fifth-floor mayor’s office and moving Parks and Recreation to a single side of the building on the fourth floor. Parks and Recreation got a new wooden entrance, doors and glass, a job that was contracted out for nearly $165,000. The fourth-floor renovations also included painting, casework, flooring, asbestos remediation and other work, as well as thousands of dollars worth of furniture, a conference room, $17,384 audio-visual system and high-definition televisions for Parks and Recreation.
“One of the complaints here around the building was there was a lot of effort that could have been used in some of these facilities throughout the city,” said City Controller Michael Lamb of the nearly 100-year-old City-County Building, adding that the cost of renovations to Mr. Peduto’s office suite will be included in a forthcoming audit of the mayor’s office. “A building of this age needs a lot of work, but we also have a lot of facilities out there around the city that need even more. That’s really where it gets down to ... the issue of priorities.”
Of less concern than spending on furniture is tying up Public Works employees for months, Mr. Lamb said.
Mr. Peduto’s office replied that Mr. Lamb spent nearly $190,000 in 2012 and 2013 on renovations to his own offices, including marble counters and furniture, and Mr. Acklin called his criticisms “gutter-ball politics.”
Mr. Sicuro would not specifically comment on the renovations to city offices but said the “health and safety of all city workers has to be the highest priority” when allocating scarce dollars to a huge number of dilapidated structures.
“We just hope, moving forward, that this administration and council will prioritize any and all facilities for health and safety needs as well as structural needs for these buildings,” he said. “Many of them are very old but have a lot of life left in them. If properly maintained, they can be assets the city can be proud of for many years to come.”
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1 President Howard McQuillan noted that the state of the city’s buildings wasn’t the fault of any particular administration but hoped for the same kind of consideration for police stations as has been shown the city hall offices.
“They said they were looking for a 40-year plan, but maybe they got some practice on their building first. Hopefully their 40-year plan will continue to be as generous to the police stations as well,” he said, noting that crumbling station houses create a morale problem for officers and project a bad image to the public.“When it’s a falling-down building that’s not maintained, then how does that reflect on your department and your employees that have to go into work there every day?”
By the end of 2015, Mr. Peduto’s office said the city will have spent more than $2.6 million on public safety facilities, $8.3 million on parks facilities and nearly $1 million on public works facilities since the mayor took office in 2014.
“There is more of a need than there are resources and that’s been true for 20 years,” Mr. Peduto said. “We’ve put together a fixed-asset management plan which we never even had before. Just two years ago, we didn’t even have a list of the buildings we operated out of.”
He called criticism of the office renovations a game of “gotcha” stemming from a new system of prioritizing facilities spending based on need, not politics, which in the past helped contribute to the decline of city buildings.
“We’re getting away from that entire political system and there are going to be those that are going to scream about it because they’ve had the power of decision left solely to them,” he said. “The priorities that we’re using on spending far outweigh where they went in terms of public safety and public works than painting of offices or a new desk.”
First Published: June 21, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
