OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL

CHERYL L. BROWN 117 WEST DUVAL STREET, SUITE 425

DIRECTOR 4^TH FLOOR, CITY HALL

OFFICE (904) 630-1452 JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA 32202

FAX (904) 630-2906

E-MAIL: CLBROWN@coj.net

JOINT RULES/PHS/FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING ON 2012-636

MEETING MINUTES - AMENDED

February 14, 2013

2:00 p.m.

Location: City Council Chamber, 1^st floor, City Hall – St. James Building; 117 West Duval Street

In attendance:

Rules Committee: Council Members Clay Yarborough (Chair), Ray Holt, John Crescimbeni, Jim Love and Robin Lumb Excused: Lori Boyer

PHS Committee: Council Members Kimberly Daniels (Chair), Don Redman (arr. 2:07), Greg Anderson (arr. 2:17), John Crescimbeni, Jim Love and Matt Schellenberg

Finance Committee: Council Members John Crescimbeni (Chair), Greg Anderson (arr. 2:17), Bill Gulliford and Clay Yarborough Excused: Lori Boyer and Johnny Gaffney

Also: Council Member Reggie Brown (arr. 3:12); Cindy Laquidara, Peggy Sidman and Tim Horkan – General Counsel’s office; Jeff Clements – City Council Research Division, Marilyn Allen – Legislative Services Division; Janice Billy and Sean Costigan – Council Auditor’s Office; Jim Robinson – Public Works Department; Jessica Deal– Mayor’s office; Beth Meyer – Military Affairs, Veterans and Disabled Services; Ricky Anderson and BeLinda Peeples – ECAs; Steve Patterson – Florida Times-Union

Meeting Convened: 2:04 p.m.

Chairman Yarborough convened the meeting and called on Cindy Laquidara to explain the background of the case and the proposed settlement agreement. Ms. Laquidara said that the case started in 2007 when the federal government began inspecting city and county governments to determine whether the city and county buildings complied with the Americans With Disabilities Act of city and county buildings and other public facilities, both publicly owned and leased for occupancy by government operations. Several years of negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice over what needs to be done and how best to accomplish it within the realm of realistic funding prospects has produced the settlement agreement being presented today. An original $38 million estimate for remedial activities has been reduced to approximately $5.5 million in known costs today as a result of both changes to the ADA compliance standards and good faith attempts to find the most cost effective ways of obtaining compliance with the law. The City recognizes its obligations and is willing and anxious to provide ADA accessibility and the subsequent monitoring that will go on after the initial remedial work is done. The federal government has been very cooperative with the City in reaching a mutually acceptable settlement agreement.

The $5.5 million cost identified in the bill is for the first phase of work, including remediation of 64 facilities already surveyed ($5 million) and $500,000 for the first phase of auditing the City’s thousands of miles of sidewalks to see how much remediation will need to be done on them. Ms. Laquidara acknowledged that the $5.5 million is the cost of the initial remedial work and will lead to a better understanding of the financial scope of remediating all City facilities, at which time the Mayor will program additional resources for remediation in future fiscal years throughout the 6-year term of the settlement agreement. In response to a question she stated that the $5.5 million phase one cost does not include work on potential ADA accessibility issues in the new county courthouse.

In response to a question from Council Member Lumb about how much of the remedial work is needed because of failure to ensure that City projects were built to appropriate ADA accessibility standards, Ms. Laquidara said that in the past the City has apparently accepted non-ADA compliant workmanship on some of its projects despite the fact that bid specifications and contract documents have always required it. The failure appears to have been in properly inspecting the workmanship before the City accepted ownership. The City has designated an ADA compliance plans inspector in the ADA office to ensure that all ADA requirements are being met by contractors hired by the City.

Public Works Director Jim Robinson said that the original $38 million cost estimate was a very rough estimate made by the Department of Justice based on a survey of a sampling of 10 percent of the City’s buildings and extrapolating those findings to the rest of the City’s inventory. The $5 million proposal in this bill is for work the City knows must be done on facilities already inspected. A considerable amount of survey work must be done on buildings and sidewalks in the next 2 years pursuant to the settlement agreement timelines. In response to a question Ms. Laquidara said that entering into the settlement agreement with the Department of Justice does not protect the City from an ADA compliance lawsuit filed by a private party over the ADA compliance of a particular facility.

Beth Meyer, the City’s ADA Coordinator in the Department of Military Affairs, Veterans and Disabled Services, said that the City is now looking at all of its construction contracts for verification of ADA compliance with personnel from both the Building Inspection division and Disabled Services. The City is offering ADA training to contractors, building maintenance personnel and others about how to spot ADA compliance issues and how they can be resolved. The Mayor’s Disability Council is contributing to the effort and offering their first-hand knowledge of ADA difficulties and potential solutions.

Tim Horkan of the General Counsel’s Office said that the Justice Department did not do any audits of the city’s sidewalks, so that area is a complete unknown as far as potential remediation costs. In response to a question from Council Member Crescimbeni about the City’s recourse against the builders of non-ADA-compliant sidewalks, Ms. Laquidara said that the statute of limitations is 2 years for professional negligence and 4 years for breach of contract (i.e. substandard construction). The City will be evaluating recently built sidewalks (within the last 4 years) to ensure that they are compliant before the statute of limitations runs out. In response to a follow-up from Mr. Crescimbeni, Ms. Laquidara said that the City’s procurement regulations would allow it to bar a contractor from doing further work for the City if a pattern of sub-standard work is identified.

Mr. Crescimbeni stated that a representative of Turner Construction, the City’s contractor for the county courthouse construction project, had requested a private meeting with him and asked Ms. Laquidara if there were any legal considerations involved in doing so. She cautioned him to do no more than listen to whatever they might wish to tell him and to have any particular questions of his answered, but to make no representations on behalf of the City and to bring any issues the company may wish to raise back to the appropriate City officials for review and response.

In response to a question from Council Member Daniels, Ms. Laquidara stated that Turner Construction did not have a limited liability clause in its construction contract for the courthouse. She noted that for several years the City has been screening contractors for the creation of limited liability corporations that have no assets other than the particular City contract in question.

In response to a question from Council Member Anderson about the scale of Jacksonville’s proposed settlement cost in comparison to other jurisdictions, Ms. Laquidara stated that the only evidence is anecdotal, but Montgomery County, Maryland’s settlement agreement required the county to take $20 million in remedial action within 2 years. In response to a question about prioritization, Jim Robinson said that the Public Works Department is working with the ADA Coordinator to get the most important public access deficiencies fixed first. The settlement agreement specifies a list of items that must be completed in particular time frames.

In response to several questions about sidewalks, Mr. Robinson responded to questions that the City has applied to the Florida Department of Transportation for sidewalk improvement funds for school zones, that the City will inspect all sidewalks for buckling and heaving damage that might impact accessibility, that the City will quickly survey and identify non-ADA-compliant sidewalks constructed in the last several years that are still within the statute of limitations for recovery, and that there is not currently a list of sidewalks that need remediation. The bill will approve the start of a process to survey and evaluate all sidewalks, determine the ADA needs, and establish a priority process for what to fix and when.

Sean Costigan of the Council Auditor’s Office reviewed the office’s 6 amendment suggestions attached to the back of the meeting agenda. After considerable discussion the committees agreed to recommend approval of all 6 amendments, with one alteration.

Motion (Crescimbeni): that the committees recommend amendment of Auditor’s recommendation #6 to change the wording from “…it is the administration’s intent to secure funding…” to “… the administration shall secure funding…” – approved.

Motion (Anderson): that the bill be amended to add language to state that the $5 million expense approved by the bill is for the purpose of remediating identified ADA issues in the 64 buildings already surveyed, but does not include any remediation costs for the 360 facilities not yet surveyed or for any sidewalk remediation – approved.

The committees unanimously recommended approval of 2012-636 as amended.

Meeting adjourned: 3:39 p.m.

Minutes: Jeff Clements, Council Research Division

2.21.13 Posted: 3:00 p.m.

Tape: Rules/PHS/Finance Joint Committee on 2012-636 2.14.13

Legislative Services Division