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Glitches handcuff city's move to open new jail (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/18/BAGSLCQS0Q1.DTL)

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

San Francisco has got itself a spanking new, 768-bed jail in San Bruno, but it's sitting empty because the locks don't work.

Or the emergency alarms.

Or the vent system.

Or a host of other things. In fact, an estimated $3 million worth of things.

The contractors on the $115 million job, however, have told the city that they're done -- and they're outta here.

"As it stands now, 10 percent of the locks don't work right,'' said Deputy City Attorney George Wong, who is handling the fight between the city and the contractor.

"The locks are supposed to lock automatically when you return someone to their cells -- they don't, but they show that they are locked in the control room," Wong said.

Plus, he said, "the duress alarm system (used by guards in emergencies) doesn't work throughout the entire jail. And the air flow into the cells isn't adequate, so the cells get hot and smelly.''

And those are just the highlights. All in all, Wong said he had two pages of fix-it complaints on the jail.

"It's not like we can move people in and work out the problems -- this is a jail,'' Wong said.

The building contractor, AMEC -- which was supposed to have completed the job a year and half ago -- sees things differently. The company declared the job done April 8 and left a week later.

"From our point of view, the work we were contracted to do is complete," said AMEC spokesman Michael Jolliffe. "There are disputes between the two of us on a number of issues, but they are subject to ongoing legal discussions --

and are nothing I can comment on."

If AMEC doesn't come back, the next step will probably be for the city to finish the work, then bill the contractor or the bonding company for the repairs and $17 million in late charges.

Then -- if all else fails -- sue.

Of course.

San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey, itching to close the city's dilapidated, 1930s-vintage lockup in San Bruno, calls the jail jam "extremely frustrating."

"We should have been in that jail a year ago,'' Hennessey said. "It's an embarrassment to everyone involved."

It's not the hippies -- it's whoever let the contracting company get away with that shit. No accountability or oversight.

No kidding. After having worked on National Park rigs for awhile now, dealing with the bean counters in their maintenance department just boggles my mind.

 Seriously, their indication of when it's time to replace a serpentine belt is when it breaks. Which naturally leaves the vehicle stranded, in whatever remote location these people are in. Oil changes? Fuck no. Wait until the oils so thick it won't even drip off the stick. Honestly, the federal and state governments could save countless dollars just by doing regular scheduled maintenance on their fleet vehicles. I believe this is called pennywise and pound foolish. But why should this surprise me.