Council Member Calls for Hearing on Terminal Delays

A City Council member called yesterday for a hearing on construction delays at the St. George terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, complaining that the project lacks a sense of urgency.A Democrat of Staten Island, Michael McMahon, said he planned to send a letter to the chairman of the council’s Transportation Committee, John Liu, requesting a hearing on cost overruns and problems with contractors.The New York Sun reported yesterday that the cost of rebuilding and expansion project has ballooned from $89 million to about $120 million, not counting an increase of about two-thirds, to $11.6 million, in the fee due the general contractor on the job, Barney Skanska.“What we have all feared is that there is not a sense of urgency to this project,” Mr. McMahon said. “This project seems to be drifting. Hopefully we can turn up the volume and get them to hurry up.”City officials, in testimony before the council in June and in interviews with the Sun, have acknowledged that the ferry terminal project was running behind schedule and was costing more than anticipated. They attribute the delays to cold weather, the September 11 attacks, the crash at the terminal last year that killed 11 people, and the challenges of doing the job while 70,000 commuters continued to pass through the terminal.The Sun reported that progress has also been delayed by the indictment of the president of the largest subcontractor on the project, Nicholas Laganella of PT&L Contracting, and the bankruptcy filing of the prime masonry and concrete subcontractor, Shroid. In addition, Barney Skanska blamed some slowdowns on the pace of work by electricians, which it called “embarrassingly slow.”The St. George terminal project, which was originally scheduled to be completed last year, is now expected to be finished in “late 2004,”officials have said. Mayor Bloomberg is said to be planning to deliver his State of the City address at the refurbished terminal in January.Mr. Liu, a Democrat of Queens, said he found the problems detailed in the Sun “disturbing” and would “absolutely consider” holding another hearing on the project. He said suspicious change orders and missing timesheets flagged by auditors, and complaints of delays by workers, should be further examined.“We have talked about it and I am considering holding a hearing,” he said. “Any activity that results in delays and cost overruns is undesirable. But when you have suspected criminal activity involved, it’s particularly disturbing.”The chairman of the council’s Committee on Investigations, Eric Gioia, also expressed outrage.“This would never be tolerated in the private sector, neither by a regular person putting an extension on their house or by a big corporation building a new facility, and it shouldn’t be tolerated by government,” said Mr. Gioia, a Democrat of Queens. “In fact, it is this kind of situation that makes people question whether their taxpayer dollars are being well spent.”The Transportation Committee is to hold a hearing today on a bill that would require scheduling more ferry trips between Staten Island and Manhattan, to keep pace with Staten Island’s growing population. Mr. McMahon said he plans to question officials from the city’s Department of Transportation about the construction delays.

Council Member Calls for Hearing on Terminal Delays

Council Member Calls for Hearing on Terminal Delays

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