Flooding fire stations, fuzzy financials. SF spent millions on faulty infrastructure

By Sam Montros : sfstandard – excerpt

San Francisco’s fire and police stations cost millions more than they should have and are riddled with defects—a Civil Grand Jury report published Thursday reveals.

Two fire stations and one police station along the eastern waterfront exceeded initial budgets by $31 million, the report found. All the buildings, plus one other emergency facility, have significant structural challenges, poor designs and are prone to flooding.

The findings blame the Department of Public Works and say the issues could extend to hospitals and emergency response structures across the city.

The jury’s 19 volunteers discovered numerous DPW-built buildings suffer from design flaws, poor locations and excessive expense, which could have been avoided.

“The city of San Francisco is facing a financial problem,” said Will McCaa, the lead author of the “Building San Francisco” report. “With the city’s fiscal problems, we can’t afford to waste money or overspend on capital projects with equipment that breaks.”…

“We stand by our strong track record at Public Works in delivering complex capital projects,” DPW spokesperson Rachel Gordon said in an email. “[We] look forward to more thoroughly reviewing the Civil Grand Jury’s findings for accuracy, for example, which agency is responsible for what, and to consider the recommendations to assess where we can and should do better.”…(more)