Veterans home delays criticized

Friday, March 9, 2001 | 12:17 p.m.

CARSON CITY -- Cost overruns and delays in building the veterans home in Boulder City have legislators upset and questioning the handling of the state's construction program.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, told state Public Works Board executives he was trying to "understand how the center became another Lied Library," referring to the library at UNLV which was delayed and over cost by more than $600,000.

Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, asked, "Is there anything that the Public Works Division completed on time and without major problem?"

Dan O'Brien, who took over as director of the division about four months ago, said 95 percent of the projects supervised by his agency don't encounter major problems. He said there are some high-profile jobs -- such as the Veterans Home, the Lied Library and the new prison in Southern Nevada -- that run into trouble.

"If we tighten up our procedures we will be able to resolve a lot of our problems," O'Brien told a meeting of the Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee Thursday.

He addressed the committee to explain the extra $1 million to complete the Veterans Home, which was scheduled to be finished in May 2000 and is now projected to be done in mid-April.

The project was scheduled to encompass 115,000 square feet but was scaled back to 82,000 square feet because bids came in higher than expected. Instead of one bathroom for every two veterans there is now one bathroom for every four patients.

Raggio told O'Brien, "We all have heart burn over this." Arberry wondered why the project, which has been downsized, is taking longer than expected to finish. "This is very frustrating for everybody," Arberry said.

Arberry said he "hated to bring politics into this" but said the legislators get blamed for these problems. "We're going to beat up on you because it is high-profile," he told O'Brien.

"I don't want to fry with you,"Arberry said.

Sen. Bernice Mathews, D-Reno, asked O'Brien if anything could be done to return to the original plan, which called for one bathroom for two patients. O'Brien said the project was too far along.

Ward Patrick, deputy manager of the public works board, said there was an unfavorable initial bid.