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Oversight detours streetscape
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- The city's plans to add old-fashioned street lamps, imitation brick crosswalks, extra landscaping and wider sidewalks downtown have hit another pothole. The grant administrator, a consultant hired to shepherd the $825,000 project from conception to completion, is facing a dead end. The Inverness City Council will consider a staff recommendation tonight to fire Clark, Roamelis and Associates, known as CRA, because the firm failed to secure state approval for the renovations around a city landmark -- namely the 1912 Historic Courthouse, which was restored with the help of state dollars. The oversight has delayed the downtown project for five months already and could take a couple of more months to resolve. "You employ a grant administrator to drive you around the potholes in the process," said Frank Blackwelder, the city's administrative management assistant. "This was a big pothole, and we hit it." "We no longer have confidence in the current grant administrator," Blackwelder said. If the City Council agrees to sever ties with CRA, Blackwelder said the city would negotiate with Berryman & Henigar to step in as grant administrator and carry the project forward. The city indefinitely postponed the project in August, just before the construction projects were supposed to go out to bid, because the county raised concerns that the renovations would disrupt the courthouse grounds. The project would carve angled parking spaces out of the northwest edge of the courthouse square, altering the property's unique diamond shape. Also, the northeast and southeast sides of the courthouse would be lined with eight oak trees, which county officials feared would grow to obstruct the view of the old courthouse. Blackwelder and City Manager Frank DiGiovanni went to Tallahassee last month to discuss the project with state officials, only to discover that the state should have reviewed these plans much earlier in the design process. The $825,000 project includes a $600,000 Community Development Block Grant from the state. "We like to look at them early in the process and again at the end, more or less to make sure we don't have any problems," said Harold Eastman, a planner with the state's Department of Community Affairs. Eastman will visit Inverness on Thursday to review the plans and see if modifications are needed for the plans around the old courthouse. The city blames CRA for failing to bring the plans before the state sooner. Reached Monday on his cell phone, CRA president W.H. "Bud" Clark pleaded ignorance about the need for state review. "I don't know anything about that," Clark said. He also said he knew nothing about complaints that his firm has failed to fully pay BCI Engineers and Scientists, the subcontractor that designed the downtown renovation plans. So far, the city has paid CRA $75,968 for engineering and $21,500 for project administration. In turn, Clark should have paid BCI engineering $58,448.86 for its work. In a Dec. 28 letter to the city, BCI complains that it has received only $14,934 from Clark. If the city severs its ties with Clark, Inverness will pay the $43,514.86 balance owed to BCI engineering. Essentially, Blackwelder said, the city will be paying for the engineering twice. Although the detour with CRA has been a financial and scheduling setback, Blackwelder is optimistic the project will move forward soon. "We have to do everything possible to make sure we get this back on track as soon as possible," Blackwelder said.
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