Elected officials are taking steps to ensure Tinley Park’s Public Safety Building continues serving as a haven during the coldest days of winter and hottest days of summer.
Trustees last week agreed to install new switching gear, which controls the electric power supply and is supposed to also protect equipment during brownouts and surges.
The new apparatus replaces a more-than 30-year-old piece of equipment damaged during the July 12 thunderstorms that swept through Chicagoland, drenching Tinley Park.
The Public Safety Building, which encompasses Fire Station 1 and the 911 Center, was able to use a backup generator to maintain basic lighting, radio and telecommunications equipment and computers. But the generator was unable to provide enough power for heating, ventilation and cooling.
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Changing switching gears is expected to cost approximately $121,000, which will be paid for with unspent money from the Public Safety Building’s lighting-replacement project. Chicago-based F.H. Paschen is acting as the general contractor through a state program intended to streamline the process.
Trustee Tom Staunton, who introduced the issue to the board, offered the only discussion before a unanimous vote.
The issue was extensively addressed during an earlier meeting of the Public Works and Boundary Committee, which consists of Staunton and Trustees Patty Leoni and T.J. Grady with Mayor Ed Zabrocki as an ex-officio member. Trustee Dave Seaman also sat in. Public Works Director Dale Schepers told the committee the power was out for 30 hours and restored only after a contractor was found to provide spare and salvaged parts.
He termed the device “damaged and obsolete” and said such outages seem to be becoming more the rule as “Commonwealth Edison’s reliability keeps deteriorating.”
Staunton praised Facilities and Fleet Superintendent John Urbanski, saying he had done “a fantastic job of getting the project together.” The replacement would be “basically 99 percent idiot-proof,” he said, adding it wouldn’t be an entire system replacement.
It also will ensure uninterrupted heating, ventilating and air conditioning in the building — an issue that involves more than employee comfort.
With a weather-related loss of HVAC, he said, “We don’t have a warming center; we don’t have a cooling center.”