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