June 7, 2005

Contractor default delays middle school construction

CUSD takes proactive stance to meet deadlines, allay concerns

By Candy Richter
Staff Writer

The Monroe Middle School reconstruction project hit a significant snag in Phase I of its construction with the recent revelation that the corporation under contract to complete this first arm of the project has defaulted on their contract terms. Campbell Union School District is now in talks with the insurance guarantor to find alternatives that allow construction to move forward.

Unlike the costs of portables and other facilities, transportation and driver costs cannot come from Measure H bond monies and would have had to further burden the CUSD general fund.

This information was made public in a series of meetings during the week of May 16, including a town hall forum held at the Monroe campus on May 17. Although CUSD officials invited individuals from the community to attend the May 17 meeting, some felt that not enough outreach effort was made to keep the surrounding neighborhood abreast of new developments that would have a direct effect on their environment.

Band-aid solution
“The school has a good principal and outstanding staff,” said long-time neighbor, Gordon Abbott, who also served as a CUSD board member from 1971 – 82. “That’s not our complaint. There must be a better solution [for] housing the students while construction is going on besides the portables. It’s like a shanty town. Maybe going to an alternate location, or to two sessions until it’s finished. We see [the addition of the portables] as the deterioration of the physical facility, not the programs offered. It’s a band-aid type solution.”

These concerns and frustrations were echoed by Don Croup, a neighbor of the Monroe campus whose kitchen window will be 20 feet from the proposed site of one of the new portable classrooms the district plans to bring in to house the students during construction.

“First of all, I want to emphasize our support of public education,” said Croup. ”But what has happened here is that we are being told things and they are not happening, and now I’m [facing] 16 portable classrooms 20 feet away from my kitchen table. Why wasn’t the community aware of these contingency plans if they were having meetings with the PTA and school administration out at the school?”

In addition to the apparent lack of communication from the district office, according to both Croup and Abbott, many of the neighbors they spoke with about the construction delays seemed most concerned with the additional 16 portable classrooms coming to the Monroe campus to temporarily house the students.

And at the crux of this concern is the idea that these “temporary” classrooms will become permanent fixtures, much like the existing 19 portables that currently dot the Monroe Middle School campus.

Awaiting insurance solution
CUSD assistant superintendent for administrative services, Dale Thurston, was involved in the initial bidding review and has both coordinated the community meetings and gone door-to-door to speak with the neighbors. He pointed out that due to the legal aspects of this breech of contract, the district unfortunately cannot discuss certain elements of this issue with the community.

However, he emphasized that rather than waiting around for the insurance company to step in to solve this, the district is “re-bidding the project and is being proactive in this situation.”

As for the concerns over the 16 new portable classrooms, according to Thurston, they are by their very definition temporary structures and cannot legally be on the Monroe site for more than one year.

“The [temporary] classrooms are not DSA approved and cannot by law be on site for more than one year,” explained Thurston. “The existing portables are all permanent structures.” He added that to be out of compliance by extending the life of the portable classrooms, the state could come in and “shut down the whole project.”

“We looked at other sites but chose the portables because of functionality and economics,” said Thurston. “The closest off-site facility was in the Union District and would have cost our district nearly $800,000 in transportation costs.”

Unlike the costs of portables and other facilities, transportation and driver costs cannot come from Measure H bond monies and would have had to further burden the CUSD general fund.

Although Phase I of the Monroe Middle School project has lost approximately 16 months, Thurston is still looking to meet the “06-07 school year completion date for this project as a whole, with all buildings up and functional.

“Right now, our best case scenario is to hit our target completion date and be ready to go at the beginning of the year, our worst case is that we will have to push that out and will be ready to go within that [2006-07] school year.”