The Oakland Coliseum Authority is facing $10M in
"unexpected bills for the makeover of the newly reopened
basketball arena -- yet another burden for the financially
troubled public agency," according to Renee Koury of the SAN
JOSE MERCURY NEWS. If the Authority winds up paying the
extra building costs, "it could require another infusion of
public funds on top of the millions of taxpayer dollars
already going toward the Raiders deal and possibly millions
more to subsidize the Warriors deal." The Coliseum,
however, "so far has refused to pay" the extra building
costs demanded over the past month by the general
contractor, CA-based Tutor-Saliba Corp. Tutor has billed
the Authority for $9.8M in work it contends was "outside the
scope of its contract," but public officials contend that
"most of the work was required" under the $73M set-price
contract. While "conceding some cost overruns," Authority
Project Manager Matt Vail said he would "deny responsibility
for the bulk of the" $9.8M in bills from Tutor the
contractor claims was extra (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 3/1).
STALEMATE: Koury also reported that the Authority is
withholding about $7M that it owes Tutor, "claiming that
some of the arena construction work was done poorly or left
unfinished" (SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, 3/1).
