 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. I'm Dan Lemehue, County Board Chairman, I'm co-host of this show with Adam Pin, our administrative coordinator. And we bring the show to you monthly, trying to bring the services and departments of Sheboygan County to our viewers, so you have a better understanding of what Sheboygan County Government provides for you. This week we have with us Vern Gross, our Building Services Manager. We have quite a few buildings that are quite obvious to the public in Sheboygan County. We've got the courthouse that's been there for years. The jail, the administration building recently built, our healthcare facilities, Health and Human Services building. So we have a large number of buildings and a large responsibility. Vern, your department has that responsibility, the Building Services Department. So why don't we start today, Vern, just with a few minutes, give us a little background about yourself and how long you've been with Sheboygan County. Sure, Dan. I am originally a native of Northern part of Wisconsin. I have a degree in engineering from the University of Wisconsin. And I spent some time in the steel mills and manufacturing in Chicago, Milwaukee. I started with the County of Sheboygan in 1987 and I've been here for, since that period, in the same position. And then, fill us in a little bit about your department, the Building Services Department and what the mission and primary responsibilities are for that department. Certainly, the Building Services Department has the responsibility for several buildings, as you mentioned, and that includes the courthouse, the law enforcement center, the new administration building, the human services building, the backster building, the new detention center, and Taylor Park. One of the things that we've also provided to the county, hopefully, is to provide some technical help and experience and aid to some of the other county facilities, such as the nursing homes and the highway department and the university campus. Our primary purpose is to provide for the citizens of the Sheboygan County an efficient and effective areas and business opportunity or places to conduct the business of the county so that the ability to provide that service be handled in an efficient manager and in attractive surroundings for that business. And to accomplish this work, what size staff do you have? The staff we have in the Building Services Department for those buildings I mentioned, we have 34 people and that's 14 maintenance workers who are on first and second shift. We also handle the janitorial duties for those facilities that I mentioned. They're 14 cleaners. Also have an assistant to my office. I have a superintendent of maintenance who has responsibility for the day-to-day maintenance in each of these buildings. And I have an electrician who is probably a technician who helps all of the county departments and facilities. And a clerk. You mentioned maintenance, some of the electrical and engineering areas. Janitorial, that doesn't include the janitorial work for all the buildings for the county, does it? We have janitorial service for those buildings that I mentioned that are underneath the courthouse maintenance group as such. And that's the administration building, the human services building, the courthouse, the law enforcement center and the detention center. And the health care centers. Health care centers is their own stuff. Yeah, the health care centers have their own maintenance group under a supervisor of maintenance at each individual health care center, Rocky, Noel, Sonny, Rich, Comprehensive. And they have their own maintenance staff and cleaning staff. And the UW center the same way? The UW center is the same way. The UW has a maintenance supervisor. They have their own cleaning staff. And seeing we're talking about the UW center, I know when I came on the county board 12, 13 years ago, I was quite surprised at the county's involvement with the UW center. And probably many of the people that are watching this show are also surprised as to the county's involvement with the UW center. Maybe you could expand on that a little bit. Sure. And you're right. There are probably many people within the county should bargain and don't realize the county's involvement with the UW system, particularly here at this campus. The campus was built on land that was actually donated and in effect by the Kolder Corporation and for that purpose, for education. The main office building, the main administration building here was constructed in the 1960s, middle 1960s. And since then, it's expanded. Now the county of Sheboygan owns the facilities and the buildings are provided by the county. The university center system, which is a two-year campus, operates the academics and the functioning of it. County also has the responsibility to provide the facility for the educational purposes here. And that includes capital investment, replacing of some of the large units, such as the air conditioning system and so forth. One of the most recent projects that we had here was the new commons area. Remember that was 1998 project that provided for a better area for student gathering and provided for some of the new informational technology classes that were being contemplated. It also provided new administrative area in the older building. Those types of capital projects are under the county's G.S. of seeing that they're done and provided for the students. So the campus at this location since the late 60s, so all the buildings that the people see out here now, we've built those and maintained them. They have been constructed by the county. And later on the show, I think we're gonna talk a little bit about some of our future projects. And I think there's some projects for the campus so we can leave that to later. But I think it is a surprise to most people as to the county taxpayers' involvement with the campus out here. And the county has a great investment and a lot of involvement with this campus, yes. So in addition to the upkeep and maintenance responsibilities, transitioning to the capital projects, I know there's a number of capital projects that you also take a leadership role and describe some of the capital projects in the past that you've been involved with. Well, Sheboygan County has undertaken a large dedication towards providing those facilities that are required with modern day function of county government. And one of the first projects that I was involved in as a course was the construction of the 93 building at Rocky Knoll. I remember the original Rocky Knoll building was the old Tuberculosis Sanitarium that was antiquated. It did not suit itself to the care of the residents as their, you know, as in modern conveniences were just not there. The building itself became pretty dilapidated. So county board decided that it was time that we did something with that building instead of sinking more money into trying to keep it up to replace it. And we did. That was completed in 1993 by actually the general contractors, one of our local contractors, did a good job with it. And I think we've embellished the appearance and the function of that facility by quite a bit. Following that, the county determined that the existing law enforcement center just was not adequate. County was spending a lot of money transporting inmates between jails wherever there was, were jail spaces available and spending a lot of money on leasing or renting jail spaces for the county's inmates. Several studies were made as to what would be the best alternative to pursue and trying to provide for that, probably an unfortunate comment on today's society, but we needed more jail space. And some land was purchased from the city on the south side of Sheboygan. That project started with phase one where we were putting together a facility to house both work release inmates and secure. Sort of in the middle of that project, it was determined that we just did not have enough space even with that new addition. So we added what was mounted to a phase two to it. So right now we have capability for 167 or so inmates at the phase one facility and probably 120 or so secure on phase two. And that has worked out well. So that's another one of the projects. And then back in the, well, the middle 1980s, it was determined that Sheboygan County needed a fifth courtroom. Sheboygan County petitioned the state to provide that court, but we didn't have a place for it. And we started a domino effect of providing a space in the top floor of the annex building, which coincidentally was constructed as a courtroom to start with, but over time the courts moved in there, the district attorney moved in there. So we went back to that concept of retaining that as a courtroom. So now we needed room for the district attorney. So he had to move somewhere else. It was determined to take the existing courthouse and provide the facility for the courts in that building and construct another building to take care of the administrative functions, which your offices, the personnel department, the county clerk, the register of deeds, the planning department, finance department, those administration activities could be moved into a separate building and it was. So now the courthouse is primarily court related functions with a district attorney in the court of courts and the administration building is the administrative function. And that was completed in 1999. So you mentioned the work at Rocky Knoll in 1993, the new detention center, the courthouse situation with creating a new courthouse chambers, the administration building. And for our viewers, if you haven't been to the courthouse in the last year and a half or two years, make a point to stop by. It's a beautiful facility. The work that was done has really improved the efficiency and the operations at the courthouse, the administration building. I know when it was first completed, we had a number of people going to the courthouse and then finding their way over to the administration building to pay taxes or go to the register of deeds. But in any regards, fine work there. Another area that you've started in the last year or so is the 800 megahertz system. I know that's a project you've been involved with with some of the infrastructure and towers. Touch on that a little bit. The Sheriff's Communications system is not just the Sheriff's Department. The system provides communications between volunteer fire departments throughout the county, transportation sections, public works departments and the other villages such as Plymouth and Elkhart Lake and so forth. And what has happened to communications in the 20th century, 21st century now, is that the volume of traffic over communication system has become so intense that the bandwidth available for these had shrunk and they just didn't have enough ability to put channels out. So the Sheriff's Department is going to what is called an 800 megahertz system which allows more channels and marrying that with the city of Sheboygan to assist them and to integrate the communications and dispatch between the two departments. But that required different tower siding locations than we had so right now with this system that is up and running, there are a few things that have to be added to it or completed in it but primarily the dispatch system is functioning. We have six tower sites where before we had four. We had to construct new towers at Comprehensive Healthcare Center in Waldo at Rocky Knoll in Plymouth. We stiffened up the tower that we have at Taylor Hill and we leased the tower from N.R. And we have tower sites in Elkhart and Highway 67. And that's been a massive project that is just coming into completion and it looks like it's functioning very well. So if our viewers didn't have a flavor for it when we first started this program, building services is not exclusively maintenance and upkeep. The number of projects that you've worked on in the past just since 1987, there's been some real significant infrastructure improvements made in the county. Now tell us a little bit about what you're presently working on. Well, and you're right, Adam, the county has developed a lot of resource to providing modern places for its business function and to serve the public. And one of the things that has been a concept within the county for several years, of course, is what do we do with Comprehensive Healthcare Center? It was, at one time, the model of a county farm. It was structurally sound. It was a good building. But the layout of the building and the ability to care for that population that were residents there and becoming less and less efficient. Some of the mechanical problems we have in the building come with the building's age. It's not easy to keep the building up. And then there were a couple of things that were happening as to what was the county's role in caring for this type of person. So there were many meetings, many discussions. We had input from several consultants to determine the demographics of the people that we were trying to care for and what would be the best way to do so. And we also changed the administrators a couple of times. But with the advent of Mr. Laraby and his work in developing what is now the current plan is to provide for that population that currently are comprehensive at Rocking Oil. Another addition to the Rocking Oil campus. And right now we are currently under that construction. There will be a 37 bed addition for the ICMFR group at Rocking Oil, which is new construction. The foundations are up, the walls are up, the roof is on. We're pretty well into that project. There will be some modifications or alterations made to the Rocking Oil campus, the 93 building, primarily to provide for the facility to have two separate populations there. And that's underway. One of the things we've had and almost any contractor in town will recognize that the weather hasn't helped us much. Been wet. Every time we go out there after de-water the site. There's also some modifications being undertaken at the Sunny Ridge Nursing Home. And that's to accommodate those residents who are afflicted with Alzheimer's. And provide a courtyard at the north side of the building. We're also going to upgrade the facility itself by providing more modern air conditioning units for the building. And we're going through with a project to provide fire sprinklers throughout the building, which it had not had before. Over a nine million dollar improvement to those two facilities to consolidate our healthcare centers. Well, the county's cost is around nine million dollars. Although Chairman Lemme who had one time told me that I had to stay within or under $900. I didn't think we were gonna talk a lot about numbers today. So don't quote me on the numbers too closely there. But moving on from the major improvements that are being made at Rocking Hill and Sunny Ridge to a less expensive project, perhaps some viewers have noticed of late some men dangling from the courthouse. What's going on there? We have a contractor out of Elkhart, like WWMation Restoration, who is cleaning the courthouse. If you'd noticed over time that beautiful Indiana limestone that the courthouse is constructed of will gather dirt and dust and grime. Now, at one time when the rice collards were across the river it was more often. And that's exactly what they're doing. They're going through and water blasting it to clean it up. And the effect is remarkable. You can see exactly where they've been or where they haven't yet. And then they will follow that up with tuck pointing and repair and window glazing and building maintenance. That's part of the program. Now, earlier the chairman asked how many staff he had in your department. I think you said 34? 34. 34 staff and I think our viewers have picked up on the fact that our staff are not the ones doing all this work, that you're in many instances overseeing it or leading the project implementation, but we contract with people. How does that process work? Could you in a nutshell share with how the bidding processes carried through? Yeah, as a need or requirement for a project or even a large piece of equipment or a modification of existing equipment arises and it's determined that this is something that's worth doing and should be done or needs to be done. We would, in the case of a structure, go to architectural firms and for instance the new consolidation project, we interviewed, we took responses from somewhere around 19 or 20 different architectural firms, interviewed at least a half a dozen of them and from that selected a firm who working with probably a consultant could come up with the design development of what would suit the county's purposes and once that selection is made, then by working with those architects in developing a program for, we need so many rooms, we need such and such mechanical system, they would develop the documents that specifications for and the county is bound to operate within the state purchasing guidelines so those specifications have to be developed, advertised for bids, bids received, bids evaluated and then awarded to a successful contractor. And my final question before turning it back to the chairman, throughout that process, you're working with the property committee, the finance committee, a building committee, how are those decisions arrived at in terms of what bid is going to be selected? Quite often a project is determined, the authority for the project is determined by the unit that it's in, for instance healthcare would be the healthcare committee, buildings at the courthouse and so forth would be the property committee, buildings at the egg building or the extension building would be that committee and if it's a large enough project then sometimes the county board will at point or establish an ad hoc committee which is made up of members for that purpose but all these projects then are referred through a committee to a committee for their approval and then that committee, if it's an ad hoc committee or a standing committee will remain with that project until completion and oversee its function. Very good, thank you. Vern, before we started taping we were joking around a little bit about if we had air conditioning in our five year capital plan for this building because it was getting a little warm in here with the lights on but we are starting our budget process for 2002 and you're involved in that process is not only your own department's budget but a lot of future capital projects that you're involved with. Maybe you could talk a little bit about some of the projects that are in the works for the next three, four, five years and not just the large projects but even some of the smaller ones. Well some of the things that we're trying to accomplish within the building services department of course is to make more of the building structures facilities we have more efficient. Those of us who were hit with the rise in the fuel prices this winter recognize hey that's not a bad idea let's see what we can do with that. And one of the things we're undertaking right now is to reapply what technology is available now to for instance the courthouse air conditioning system. We, the courthouse in 1933 of course its air conditioning system was open windows. We did provide air conditioning of a sort with it which was technology feasible at the time but it's not the most efficient. The courtrooms of course are on another separate system which again is wearing out and getting old. So those type of things in the energy management field where there are software driven programs that can be provided that give you much more efficiency. We have a couple other projects going on. One of them is a investigation of the role the university campus is playing here in Sheboygan County. The campus has seen a tremendous increase in its ability and its serving of the public both in traditional students, non-traditional students, community programs and we're looking at a far reaching or a comprehensive plan that looks out over several years of what should we do here at the university campus to make this a better functioning unit. And right now we're engaged with an architect, local architect in town to try to develop those plans to make sure that what we do is something that's not going to come back five years from now and say gee we should have and I hope we're doing it well. So you don't want to mention any specific parts of that project right now because it's in the early stages. It is in the very early stages and it will be presented to the finance committee shortly. One of the things we're looking at of course is the infrastructure. You mentioned the air conditioning. There are some improvements that could be made here. Another thing is to take the mechanical structure of the boiler room, that sort of thing and see if there's something we can do to provide better unit strength. And there are a couple of state programs that may aid us in this, energy conservation programs that we're also investigating. The other thing is to take a look at the requirement for additional classrooms and to do something with their science lab. The science lab facility is not up to date to be frank. In fact in a lot of cases it's not as good as some of the high schools in town. So those are the things we're looking at. I know that when you were describing the projects that you worked on in the last few years I think you probably shortchanged your department a little bit. I know that when we moved a lot of the people out to our detention center, we did a lot of remodeling in the original jail next to the courthouse. For the juveniles and a lot of remodeling there. When we built the administration building we started, as you said, the domino effect, moving departments around. Every time we move a 20 or 30 person department you don't do that for nothing and there's some remodeling involved so you may be shortchanged your projects a little bit. We said we weren't gonna talk about numbers but I think in the last four or five years we've been pretty much bonding for most of our projects in the neighborhood of eight, nine million dollars a year. And I know that the finance committee, myself, many of the county board supervisors realized we can't continue bonding eight, nine million dollars a year indefinitely because our debt service is really hurting our budgets. So another responsibility of deciding what gets done isn't you bring us the technical information, you bring us the numbers and then the supervisors have to make the decision so we really appreciate the experience that you bring to county government to prepare us to make those decisions but just because something is in the planning stages doesn't mean that for our viewers that it's gonna be implemented necessarily we still have to come up with the money to do these projects. Chairman, I'm well aware of that and I've been in some of the meetings where we try to go through this but you're entirely right that my department will develop the scope of a project. It's up to the county board and its committees to determine the need for it and that's exactly what we're doing. The blame comes to the county board supervisors, not to the department that sets us up. I tried to put it that way. Right, right. Well thank you, Verne, it's really, as we do these shows, I've been on the county board for 13 years and I continue to be amazed at the depth of our departments and the work that they do. So I appreciate the show again this month. Next month, for our viewers, we're going to have Chuck Mayer, the who runs our Schwartin County Memorial Airport and I think one of the questions we're gonna ask him next month is what is the possibility in the future of being called Schwartin County International Airport? And it's not just a trick question but something to keep in mind as you wait for our show next month and Chuck Mayer will be our guest and thank you for watching.