Panel OKs revised add-ons for new Sheriff’s boathouse

About $130,000 for additional expenditures for the Macomb County Sheriff’s new boathouse were approved Tuesday by a committee of the county Board of Commissioners.

The commission’s Internal Services Committee gave the preliminary go ahead at its meeting in the Administration Building in Mount Clemens for the county to spend $95,000 for the purchase of a water pump and switch county officials recently determined were needed more than halfway through the multi-million-dollar project because the existing watersupply system for the firesuppression system was inadequate.

The board also approved $35,700 for the engineering firm, Shelby Township-based Anderson, Eckstein & Westrick, to design the system to retrieve water from Lake St. Clair and pump it to the fire-suppression system. Officials determined Harrison Township’s current water system couldn’t provide enough pressure for the system to automatically respond to a fire.

The expenditures are related to the board late last month reversing its prior near-unanimous approval of $1.7 million in add-ons for the project, increasing the cost from $8.4 million to $10.1 million, and pushing back the completion date from July 1 to Sept. 1. Work began last spring.

Nine days earlier, the committee, which is composed of the entire board, approved spending amounts not to exceed $866,000 for the water-supply system, $791,000 for five boat hoists in the boat garage and $50,000 for a public-address system, upon request of Facilities and Operations Lynn Arnott-Bryks.

But commissioners became concerned about approving the expenditures without bids and in a 11-0-1 vote remanded the items back to the committee and Arnott-Briks for better information. Commissioner Sylvia Grot of Shelby Township has abstained from all of the boathouse votes and both during roll call and after the meeting would not say why.

Arnott-Bryks apologized to commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting for “all of the questions that went unanswered” at the full board meeting.

The panel OK’d the purchase of the water pump and switch from bidder Rockford Construction, doing business as Tristar Fire Protection Inc., in Detroit. It will go to the full board March 16 for final approval.

The remainder of watersupply system will include installation of a small pump house, installation of pipe into the ground to access lake water and installation of pipe from the pump to the boathouse. Bids will be sought later for those jobs. The pump and switch won’t be available for about four months due to the process of ordering and manufacture of the pump, and the engineering firm must design the system.

For the boat hoists and public-address system, Arnott-Bryks is seeking cost estimates to bring back to the board.

Committee Chairman Don VanSyckel said after the meeting that despite the delays, he is “pleased” officials discovered the issues “now instead of later.”

“We have to make sure we have a good fire-suppression system,” he said. “We’re trying to be good stewards.”

The fire-suppression system inside the structure was already approved as part of the original project cost.

VanSyckel couldn’t say whether the new developments will delay the project completion longer than the two months revealed last month.

The project’s total cost also could rise due to it being extended, officials said.