In 2004 we made some major changes in the way that we managed City facilities. Prior to 2004, the City employed a dozen of so custodians and out-sourced the management of the more sophisticated building systems to a well known Twin Cities building management company.
I was not pleased with the condition of our facilities or the direction they were headed in. After analyzing the situation with my management team, we made a rather significant change to that situation. We decided to out-source our custodial service and bring the building management in-house. It was a painful decision for those city employees that we directly impacted, as it was for the building management company that lost a sizable private contract with the City.
But for the City facilities, it was the right decision. Maybe one of the better ones that I had a hand in making in 2004. Our facilities are in the best shape they’ve been in for years. The buildings are cleaner. The carpeting is getting replaced. The flower beds are weeded. The glass in our doors gets cleaned. It’s working out very nicely.
As we take over more direct management of our building systems, such as plumbing, HVAC, electrical and the like, we are finding more frequent examples of just how poor the service was we were buying prior to 2004. The photos below are a good example.
These are pictures of bag filters. These filters are positoned within the HVAC system and filter particles out of the air before it gets into the ventilation system that leads into offices in City Center. The top photo is of a bag filter that my new Facilities staff estimates hasn’t been change in years. Not months. Years. It’s disgusting.
This is what a clean bag filter looks like. It was installed in place of the dirty one yesterday.
We’ve got more progress to make, but we are surely on the way there. Our new Facilities Division staff is identifying and fixing our facility shortcomings one by one by one by one……..
