Hamel Registers Trifecta With Redundancy Of Change Orders

Murrieta-based Hamel Contracting appears to have scored a trifecta jackpot in the aftermath of having been awarded contracts to build crisis residential treatment facilities for the county in Joshua Tree, Fontana and Victorville.
As a consequence of a similar change order to the construction of all three projects, Hamel will receive a $530,585 windfall on top of the $17,111,203 the company was previously slated to receive for completing the three jobs.
On February 14, 2017 the board of supervisors awarded a construction contract to Hamel Contracting, Inc. for construction of a 10,944 square foot, 16-bed facility located at 60805 Twentynine Palms Highway in Joshua Tree to be operated by the San Bernardino County Department of Behavioral Health as a crisis residential treatment facility to serve the Morongo Basin. The facility was intended to provide voluntary crisis intervention for adults age 18 and older diagnosed with mental health and/or co-occurring substance use disorders, entailing what is referred to as a “a positive short-term community based treatment option with recovery based services and interventions in a home-like setting for stays up to 30-90 days.”
The entire cost of the project was originally pegged at $9,270,900, which included the constructions design, land acquisition, utility connections, a construction contingency and a California Environmental Quality Act and county plan check fee. Hamel obtained the contract by bidding to carry out the construction for $5,892,008.
On July 11, the board of supervisors consented to a $658,932 amendment to the contract to pay for additional manpower to accelerate the construction schedule to meet a grant funding deadline. A subsequent amendment to the contract of $614,183 was made on September 26, relating to revisions to public utility points of connections. A change order of $104,862 made on October 6 adding scope to relocate existing Joshua trees and making modifications to windows and interior lighting pushed the construction contract amount to $7,269,985. On Tuesday of this week, the board of supervisors made a third amendment to the contract, this time entailing an additional $217,704 to be paid to Hamel for something very similar to that specified for the second amendment to the contract, “revisions to public utility point of connections.”
According to a report/recommendation by Terry Thompson, the director of the county’s real estate services department, and Veronica Kelly, the director of the county’s department of behavioral health, dated December 5 but actually written late last month, the contract increase is justified by “deferred submittal revisions required by Southern California Edison and Frontier Communications, additional modifications required to meet state licensing requirements, and extending the construction completion date from December 31, 2017 to April 2, 2018.
Thompson’s and Kelly’s report further states that the third amendment will pay for “revisions to public utility point of connections.” The amount due Hamel under the amended contract for the project now stands at $7,487,689.
Similarly, on February 14, 2017, the board of supervisors had awarded Hamel the contract to build a a 10,944 square foot crisis residential treatment facility located at 15217 San Bernardino Avenue in Fontana not unlike the one in Joshua Tree. The original construction contract on that overall $6,460,000 project was $4,111,008. Subsequently, the county on September 26 approved a $311,021 amendment to cover the cost of revisions to public utility point of connections. On October 6, the board agreed to a $67,332 change order, which added scope for removal and disposal of existing trees, modifications to windows and interior lighting, pushing the construction contract amount to $4,489,361. On Tuesday of this week, December 5, the board agreed to make another amendment to the contract, this time to again perform “revisions to public utility point of connections” at a cost of $105,348.
Two months before the board of supervisors originally okayed the Fontana and Joshua Tree projects, on December 6, 2016 the board awarded a construction contract to Hamel for the Department of Behavioral Health’s 10,944 square foot crisis residential treatment facility located at 16552 Sunhill Drive in Victorville, agreeing to pay $4,598,008 for the construction work. On September 26, 2017, a first amendment to the contract was made in which the county boosted what it was going to pay Hamel by $621,012 for revisions to public utility point of connections. Then, ten days later, on October 6, while no pre-existing trees were found to be in the way of the construction project, a $132,837 change order was deemed necessary, in this case to pay for “changes to perimeter block wall and modifications to windows and interior lighting.” At that point, the construction contract on the project had escalated to $5,351,857.
This week, the board complied with another recommendation from Thompson and Kelly to approve a $207,533 amendment to the contract to pay Hamel for further “revisions to public utility point of connections,” bringing Hamel’s take on the Victorville contract to a total of $5,559,390.
Mark Gutglueck

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