New gymnasium behind schedule
The bad news is the new competition gym is behind schedule by as much as 10 months, says Mr. Charlie Price, of Compass Builders the School’s Construction and Engineering Company. The Pittsburg School Board and Mrs. Judy Pollan, superintendent, have been working hard to settle the issue. It seems that the concrete and mason contractor has had many issues and now has left the construction site.
The problems started early when mistakes were made in the concrete footings of the building. Those footings had to be demolished, removed and re-poured. There have been other issues with this contractor as their work went slowly.
Negotiations are continuing to be discussed by the lawyers. However, most of the heavy work at the site has ceased, although work on piping and plumbing continues. The board had reached their limit of patience as the gym was to be completed by basketball season this next school year. That deadline has been eliminated by this contractor.
The Board met in a special working lunch meeting late last week that the Gazette was invited to attend by Mrs. Pollan. All of the problems with the contractor and the contract were laid out for the board by Price. No solution was found at this meeting but Price was asked by the board to begin negotiations with the contractor to find a solution or find a way to terminate the contract.
At that meeting the board was unable to make any decision as all the facts were still unknown as Compass Builder’s lawyers had gone into discussions with the contractor’s lawyers and no settlement was made as negotiations had just begun. The board scheduled another emergency open meeting for Monday night, July 2 to continue the discussion and the Gazette was also invited.
Again on Monday night, Charlie Price had the floor and laid out the options the board must consider before making any decision. Some questions the board raised had no answer as the lawyers for both sides were still negotiating. After much discussion by all the board members present, of each option, Mrs. Pollan asked Price what the bottom line was and did he have a recommendation. Price recommended to hire another contractor as a supplemental that is allowed by the current contract with this contractor, to supplement his work. If the board made a motion to do that, work could begin again as early as Monday.
Board member Vernon Rowe made that motion it was seconded and the quorum voted to hire another contractor to supplement the current contractors work and complete the contract work beginning Monday morning.