Wheelchair ramp will cost $100,000 a foot

The Board of Supervisors is weighing a $1 million wheelchair ramp to make the board podium accessible. The Board of Supervisors is weighing a $1 million wheelchair ramp to make the board podium accessible. Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Wheelchair ramp will cost $100,000 a foot 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million?

Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president's perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.

What's more, the little remodel job that planners first thought would take three months has stretched into more than four years - and will probably mean the supervisors will have to move out of their hallowed hall for five months while the work is done.

"It's crazy," admits Susan Mizer, director of the mayor's Office on Disability. "But this is just the price of doing business in a historic building."

Supervisor Jake McGoldrick said Tuesday that the issue went to the heart of liberal guilt that often drives the city's decision making. He also choked on the price tag, and asked that the board take some more time to come up with an alternative, like maybe just getting rid of the president's elevated seat.

The root of the problem dates back to when City Hall got a $300 million makeover in the 1990s that made just about every hallway, bathroom and office accessible to the disabled. The exception was the board president's podium, which is reachable only for someone who can climb the five steps from the chamber floor.

The understanding was that the room would eventually be made fully accessible. But no one worried about the podium until 2004 when Supervisor MichelaAlioto-Pier, who uses a wheelchair, joined the board.

City architect Tony Irons and representatives of the state Office of Historic Preservation - which had to be consulted to make sure the city was sensitive to the building's designation as a state landmark - were called in to take measurements.

Then preservation architects from the San Francisco firm Page and Turnbill worked up no fewer than 18 design options - at a cost of $98,000 - with ideas ranging from an electric lift to abandoning the president's lordly podium altogether.

No one could decide which design to use, so after a year of arguing, the Department of Public Works was ordered to make 3-D computer models of all the options.

The ramp won, which means lowering the president's desk, which means eliminating three of the "historic" stairs and tearing out Manchurian oak panels that are no longer available, which in turn will mean finding a historically correct replacement.

And because the ramp was going to encroach on the room's sound equipment, officials decided they might as well use the opportunity to upgrade the board chamber's entire audio-visual system, to the tune of $300,000.

Here's what else is going into the million-dollar ramp:

-- $77,000 for the city's Bureau of Architecture project manager, design and construction fees.

-- $455,000 for the actual construction, plus asbestos removal.

-- $28,000 for a construction scheduling consultant.

-- $3,500 for an electrical consultant.

-- $68,000 for the Bureau of Construction Management to oversee the construction and various consultants.

-- $12,000 for Department of Technology and Information Services oversight.

-- $16,500 for permits and fees. (Yes, believe it or not, the city charges itself.)

-- And as much as $65,000 for bid overruns.

All for a total of: $1,123,000.

And counting.

The supervisors considered signing off on the work Tuesday but put it over for another week. Even if the board gives its final blessing, however, construction of the ramp won't be completed before the end of the year - midway through Alioto-Pier's second and final term.

"I deserve equal access to every part of the chamber," Alioto-Pier told her colleagues, adding that ending discrimination is worth the $1 million.

Water war: The surprise discovery that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger provided funding for eight positions in his budget to begin work on the revived Peripheral Canal has state Senate President Pro Tem DonPerata predicting the renewal of an all-out north-south water war.

"This is shocking - it's the Dodgers vs. the Giants," Perata said Tuesday after hearing rumors that the governor had also signed an executive order to start planning for a canal.

Bill Maile, a spokesman for the governor, said no such order had been issued. But he acknowledged that Schwarzenegger included $1.4 million in his budget for the environmental work in hopes of getting a water bond on the November ballot.

The centerpiece of the bond would be a canal that would divert water from the Sacramento River to Southern California, skirting the delta altogether.

Just last Thursday, the governor sat down with key legislative Democrats and Republicans - as well as Sen. Dianne Feinstein - to try to hash out a comprehensive water plan that would protect the delta and its quake-endangered levees. But no agreement was reached.

"It looks like there is a stealth deal going on now," Perata said.

Hot wheels: State Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata's hot, hot, candy-red Dodge Charger - complete with its 20-inch chrome wheel rims - is up for sale on eBay.

Starting bid: $19,000.

Or you can pay $22,800 outright and drive it away.

Seems Perata lost his taste for the stud-rimmed look after he was carjacked at gunpoint over the holidays in Oakland in broad daylight.

At the time, it was thought the carjackers were after the rims, though no one knows for sure because no arrests were ever made.

When the 2006 Charger turned up in one piece in Richmond a few days later, Perata had already decided his sporting days were over.

The state Department of General Services recently sold the Charger to an unnamed private buyer at its monthly public auction for $17,800.

And now the buyer is trying to make a couple of bucks with a quick turnaround.

As the sale posting notes, this car has "a great story (maybe not so great) to go along with it!"

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