LG Council Spends Big Money for Big Plans

The La Grange City Council hired the architecture, engineering and design firm Parkhill to develop a facilities assessment and improvement plan for the police station, city hall and the Randolph Recreation Center.

The three aging buildings need some major repairs. Parkhill will develop a plan for those facilities with options ranging from renovation to demolition and rebuild. At a City Council meeting Monday night, Sept. 22, Parkhill quoted the City $144,110 for their services.

“This is the beginning of the process, to lay out a plan for how we want to proceed,” said City Manager Jack Thompson. “There will be options for the Council to choose, whether we’re talking minor renovations, major ren- ovations, complete demolition and rebuild. The purpose is to give Council some options and some costs on what each option would look like.

“Sometimes you may think that renovations are cheaper than a rebuild,” Thompson added. “But then you get to looking at it and it really isn’t. The juice isn’t there to squeeze.”

Councilman Ken Taylor cautioned against facility improvements that go beyond what the City needs.

“We need to make sure we get what we need and not what we want,” Taylor said. “Because it can grow exponentially that then you end up with space we cannot afford. I’ve just gone through that locally with a group. I tried to explain multiple times, ‘You’re asking for something you cannot afford.’ Guess what? We got a program we could not afford. We had to back up and redo it.”

Taylor said he agreed that the facilities need improvements.

“This is going to cost a lot of money, and I’m not against spending it,” he said. “I’ve been in those facilities, and we haven’t spent anything on them in a long, long time.”

Chris Casey from Parkhill explained how the process would work, beginning with a facilities assessment.

“We’ll go out and look at the roof,” he said. “We’re not going to tear open walls, but we will look at the mechanical equipment. We’re going to look for any accessibility deficiencies, any known deficiencies. And then we’re going to apply costs to those – what are the costs to bring those up to today’s standards. So we’re going to have all this data and information we can begin to assess as a group, doing this collaboratively, showing you what are the costs to bring all those up – whether its to repair all the windows, repair all the HVAC, repair the roof – whatever those deficiencies are, in addition to whatever upgrades that are part of the master plan or needs assessment we come up with.”

Thompson said Parkhill will come back to Council throughout their assessment to keep Council informed about their findings.

“I think that’s an important part of the process,” said Councilwoman Katie Gross. “As we saw when we first talked about doing some remodeling or renovations there was somewhat of an uproar.”

Earlier this summer the City published a public notice in the Record seeking proposals from firms like Parkhill to conduct the assessment. The notice stated that options for the three facilities included possible demolition. That didn’t sit well with some folks in the community. Years ago the Rec Center was the old segregated Randolph School, and local alumni are very proud of their alma mater.

“For us to be able to tell people, ‘This is what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,’ is very important, especially when we’re bringing in someone from the outside,” Gross said.

“The larger community obviously has a stake in this,” Casey said. “It’s making you all aware. The decisions we make collaboratively, you don’t make them in a vacuum. We can’t do these projects without staff and the community and everyone else’s involvement and participation. It really makes what we’re going to do successful.”

Council voted 7-0 to approve a contract with Parkhill. Councilwoman Kim Newton was absent from the meeting.

Also at Monday’s meeting, City Manager Jack Thompson introduced the City’s new Public Works Director, Robert Woods. Woods previously served the same role for the City of Nederland. Woods will supervise the street, parks and utility departments – a role previously held by assistant city manager Frank Menefee, who resigned from the City back in the spring.

In addition, Council voted to appoint Frank Rodriguez as the City’s new Fire Marshall. Frank Menefee had served as the City’s Fire Marshall. The City contracted with Austin Technical Services to handle fire marshall duties following Menefee’s resignation. Fire marshall is charged with conducting fire inspections, nursing home inspections, establishing fire traffic lanes and occupancy limits. Rodriguez will also serve as the City’s new building inspector. Rodriguez previously held those posts at the City of Hempstead.