Part of the extra $1.5 million of the extra money needed, approved by the Sioux Falls City Council tonight was $467K in ‘Demobilization’ fees. What is this? We are being charged to take down the crane and for them to clean up the site because the hotel is NOT being built. First off, this ‘fee’ should have been in the final costs already, and we shouldn’t be paying for this with extra funding. The developer, contractor and CMAR (Construction Manager at Risk) should be paying this, this is why we hire them – TO TAKE ON THE RISK. While I understand we have to ‘fill holes’ and provide safety issues at the facility to get it open, taking down a construction crane is NOT our problem. The CMAR, supposed developer and contractor can hash out that on their own.
Of course, the excuses were flying like the back blades on a manure spreader on an early Spring day, why WE should have to pay for this.
The finance director said the crane had to be taken down and site cleanup to open the ramp. Duh. This would have had to happen whether we built the hotel on top or not, and should have already been budgeted for.
Stehly said during the discussion, there have been very few answers about the demobilization fees. She tried to amend it by taking off the $500K and no one seconded the motion, so it failed.
Only councilors Starr and Brekke had anything to put in towards the discussion.
Towards the end, Brekke said that her ‘hands were clean’ in the matter. I guess Neitzert was making fun of her by whispering to Marshall asking for some soap as they proceeded to pretend to wash their hands (I didn’t catch it on camera, so I’m not sure what he was doing) but Starr commented before the vote, “. . . I wanted to tell Councilor Neitzert that I do have some soap and some hand sanitizer and if you want to sit in leadership and make fun of people while they are making a speech, go for it.”
LOL.
There was NO response from Neitzert.