Tribal Council approves contract amendment for Health & Wellness Center project

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals editor

With just one week between meetings due to the Veterans Day holiday Wednesday, Nov. 11, Tribal Council only had two action items on the agenda during its Wednesday, Nov. 4, meeting.

The first was approving the Tribal Engineering & Community Development Department to work with the Tribal Attorney’s Office to finalize a guaranteed maximum price amendment of no more than $4.386 million for a contract between the Tribe and Triplett Wellman Inc. for the Tribal Health & Wellness Center modernization project.

Tribal Council member Toby McClary noted that $1.25 million of that funding comes from an Indian Health Service grant.

Construction on the now 30-year-old building includes elevator modernization, pharmacy expansion, temporary accommodations to maintain pharmacy operations during construction and an upgrade to building systems such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning, as well as improving interior areas for better functionality.

Triplett Wellman was also the contractor during the original construction. More recently, the company was the general contractor for the Tribe’s Early Care and Education building. 

Construction of the Health & Wellness Center started in October 1996. Design began in August 1995 and the construction budget for the 29,000-square-foot, two-story structure was approximately $4 million. Future expansion of the building would be easy, architect Frank Whalen said at the time, because of the design in the shape of a medicine wheel with four separate wings.

In other news, council:

• Approved enrolling six infants into the Tribe because they meet the enrollment requirements in the Tribal Constitution and Enrollment Ordinance.

To watch the entire meeting, visit www.grandronde.org and click on the Videos tab.