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HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolution 75-57CITY OF COLUMBIA HEIGHTS ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER · COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, MINNESOTA 55421 RESOLUTION #75-57 FINDINGS OF FACT ON CUSTODIAL SERVICE BIDS WHEREAS, on the 24th day of September bids for custodial service were advertised and WHEREAS, on the 14th day of October bids were opened and read, and WHEREAS, Jim's Building Maintenance Inc, submitted the lowest bid for the work advertised, and WHEREAS, The City Manager had conducted an investigation and that investigation has been submitted in writing, NOW THEREFORE, BE 1T RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Columbia Heights: That the report of the City Manager dated October 28, 1975 is hereby adopted and incorporated herein by reference,and 2- That the said report of the City Manager is herein found to be true and correct, and 3- The reading of the said City Managers report is hereby waived, and That the City Managers report referred to herein shall be placed on record and attached to this resolution, making the said report available for pub]lc inspection, and Jim's Buitding Maintenance Inc. is not found to be a responsible bidder. Passed this 28th day of October 28, 1975 Offered by: Logacz Seconded by: Nawrocki Roll Call: Logacz, Heintz, Norberg, Nawrocki: - Ayes Land - Absent Bruce G. Na~rocki, Mayor 8-9221 75--5-7 CITY OF COLUMBIA HEIGHTS ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES EQUAL QPPQRTUNITY EMPLOYER O COLUMBIA HEIGHTS, MINNESOTA 55421 October 28, 1975 To~ From: Subject: Mayor and Members of the City Council Malcolm O. Watson, City Manager Inspection Report on Three Clinics Conducted Tuesday morning, October 28, 1975 This morning, in accordance with a request from the City Council at our meeting Monday evening, I personally checked out the three establishments listed by Jim's Building Maintenance, Inc. as places where he has had contracts for extended time periods. The fourth location which he named as a restaurant in the Hamm Building I was unable to locate by telephone nor the directory. I therefore passed up that one. The places which 1 checked were as follows: 2940 North Shelling--the office of Dr. R.J. Lien, M.D. I a~rived at this clinic, which incidently is a new building or at least fairly new, ~t about 8:30 a.m. The outside door on the lobby was open and the inside doors were still locked. 1 inspected the entryway and stairway including the public restroom. The carpet was clean and the restroom was in good condition. It was apparent from the appearance that the carpeting was fairly new. There was a dust accumulation on the lower hall coatrack. The entry windows were clean. There was a heavy dust accumulation on the facia board inside the entryway above the doors. This can be seen when standing on the stairway looking out the large windows. The office was opened by Carol Damon, who invited me to simply took around the office itself. I noticed that the carpeting in the office was clean but there was some dust noticeable on cabinets. Mary Grove then arrived and I asked to discuss the cleaning service with her as well. She said,"Look at the chairs in the waiting room." These were chairs that had lower rungs on them. She stated that these have ' t- been brought up eign. months ago after the new carpeting had been laid Mayor and Council -2- October' 28? 1975 and since that time dust has accumulated on the rungs and the girls did not wipe it off waiting to see how tong it would be before the custodian wiped off the dust. This was quite noticeable with the chair rungs actuatly looking gray. They informed me that the to,eels in the restrooms are never, or rarety, replaced and that they have to take it upon themselves to put in the refills. Mary then informed me t?lat when the parking lot was sealcoated people tended to track in rocks on their feet ~hich naturally had to be cleaned up and that they noticed in the morning before anyone arrived that ~he rocks were still remaining on the stairway and entry indicating that the cleanup man had not vacuumed the carpets as he was supposed to. I asked if Dr. Lien was there and the girts informed me that they had been authorized by Dr. Lien to talk ~ith me about the cleaning service as he did not w~sh to become involved. They then explained that Jim's Building Maintenance also does their snowplowing and their understanding of the arrangement was that he would not ~ke care of the parking lot snowplowing unless he had the cleaning contract as well. These girls f¢lt that they would tike to have some other service, but felt that Dr. Lien was simply satisfied that the work was being done handled and did not wish to make any changes. Their feeling wes that they had to shelter some of the responsibility for taking care of the cleaning to satisfy the needs of their office and were in favor of making a change if possible so that they could handle their work as nurses rather than handling jobs that should be done by the custodian. The girls also picked up a wastebaske~ and said please notice that the area under the wastebasket is not cleaned that the wastebasket is simply emptied and then the floor cleaned without moving the wastebasket again. My next visit was to the clinic of Or. John Kennedy, Occutist, at 1790 North Lexington Dr. Kennedy was busy when I first arrived and I walked around the corridors and noted that the carpeting in the hallways was somewhat stained and did not give the appearance of being particularly clean. While waiting for the Doctor I also checked a large wood carving type picture on the wall and on running my finger along the top of the picture a large roll of accumulated dust felt from the picture indicating that this apparently never is wiped off. I also checked on Ehe outside heating unit at the east entry. I noticed that there was an old sucker stick lying on the unit and the unit had a fairly good tayer of dust. The Doctor then took time to visit with me regarding the custodial service. He said in general the work ~s reasonably satisfactory but it depended upon the peopte who were assigned the work. He stated that at one time there was an eighty year old man trying to do the work. At another time a couple were in Mayor and Council -3- October 28, 1S75 working on the building and at various times college students do the work. He informed me that one of the custodians had been stealing from them and when he was caught by them, the custodian became angry and accused them of taking away his right to make a living instead of showing any remorse over the fact ~that he had been stealing from then~ I then asked the Doctor if I could check other offices and he had no objection to it. The girl at his desk in response to my inquiry regarding the service said that the wastebaskets were emptied regularly and vacuuming was done. She did not go into any further detail but seemed satisfied with what was occurring. I then visited an office in the lower levet, a dentist office of Dr. Gibbons. His office girt informed me that she was well satisfied with the present service man that was cleaning their offices and did not feel that there was any need for making changes in their area. I then stopped into Dr. George Mitchell's office and spoke briefly to the girls at the desk. They told me that they hadn't noticed anything particuiarly remiss in the service, and to~ me that I could check the examining rooms if ! wished. The first room that I checked seemed reasonably clean, t then checked the top of the medicine c~binet on the wall and found it to contain a heavy layer of dust which obviously had not been cleaned for several weeks. Otherwise the examining rooms seemed to be clean. My last vJsit was ~o 168 Aurora in St. Paul, the office of Dr. Platke. At Dr. Platke's office I introduced myself and the persor~ I met was Dr. Platke's personal secretary whose name was Jan. She informed me that she had been with Dr. Platke for over thirteen years. She also introduced me to the other nurse in the office, whose name was Fay. Fay had been with the clinic for about twelve years. They then invited me to walk around and examine the building. The floor in the large office area was a t. ile floor and was in very poor condition with signs of spillin~ materials in one area which I was then informed was something spilled by the maintenance man that worked in the office. I noticed the walls were dirty with a handprint in back of Jan's desk and she stated that this was where the maintenance man would place his hand when he woutd pick up the wastebasket. Jan then turned on the light in the lady's restroom for me and I found that the sink was coated with grease and the fixtures were also grease encrusted, looking not un'tike a sink in a service station. The toilet bowl had a ring in the bowl which wasn:t too noticeable because the light in the restro~m was not the best. In the men's restroom there was no deodorant soap in the urinat and Jan informed me that at times there is quite a bad odor from that area because of the failure on the part of the custodian for extended periods to put a Mayor and Council -4- October 28, 1975 deodorant bar in the urinal. We then walked down the hallway behind the office area and Jan opened the door to the janitor's closet and I immediately detected foul odor. She said that the odor is the mop which is left in that room and is never cleaned up or replaced by the maintenance man. Jan then informed me that she had purposely left a paper clip on the floor near her desk to find out how tong it would be before ~t would be picked up. Sh~ stated that~it remained on the floor for three weeks and then she called Jim, the owner of the maintenance service, informing him of the poor cleanup work and then the floor was cleaned and the paper clip disappeared. Fay then showed me the waiting room condition pointing out that in back of the chairs in the waiting room was an accumulation of ashes from cigarettes and smatl bits of fuzz that apparently had fallen from a dust mop as well as small pieces of paper. She also pointed to the entry door where the glass partition was smeared with fingerprints. I asked how long that had been in existence and she said for at least two weeks to her knowledge and that it had not been cleaned up for longer than that. Fay the, informed me that she has ha~ to clean and polish the counter top where the people come in to check on their appointments as the cleaning man never wip, es that off. Again, in this situation it became apparent that the nurses in this office have taken it upon themselves to do part of the maintenance woric such as keeping the towels in the restrooms, wiping out sinks, cleaning counter tops, and the like because the maintenance people have not been doing it as part of their regular work. I asked if they had n6ticed who does the ¢teaning in their place and they said that the cleanup person changes pretty regularly and therefore they really didn't get to know any of them very well. It would appear that there is a pretty continual turn over of personnel on the cleaning work at this location. I asked about the possibility of their talking with Dr. Platke about the service, and they stated that he is not interested in making any changes. They also informed me that years ago when Jim first began the custodial service, he did an excellent j~ and everything was very satisfactory,"but for the past few years the condition has changed with the advent of subcontracting to part-time people to handte the work. T~ foregoing is for your information in respect to the inspections which I made personally at three locations where Jim's Building Maintenance has the contract for cleaning. On the basis of the last establishment in particular I would be very concerned about having the type of service that they are receiving in their building ~s I could anticipate the deterioration of the municipal building, the library, and the service center in those areas being handled by the custodial service. Mayor and Council -5- October 28~ 1975 I would respectfully recon~end that we accept the bid of Maintenance Experts as beiog the low responsible bidder under the circumstances. We have knowledge of their performance based on our own experieoce. We have had no experience with Jim's Building Maintenance, but I would be negligent in my duties to you to recommend an award of bid to Jimts B~3i~ding Maintenance under the circumstaoces which I ?~ave observed at the establishments where he presently has cleaning contracts. MOW/me