October 04, 2012
Some members of the Guilford County Board of Education are ripping mad about construction delays at High Point Central High School, where two general contractors in a row haven't finished a $5.3 million project to renovate and expand the gym and make some repairs inside the school.
Less than two months before the start of basketball season, the High Point Central gym, which is scheduled to be finished Nov. 14, has water pooled beneath its floor, according to one school board member.
At the Thursday, Sept. 27 meeting of the school board, that anger boiled over in an unusual public argument about construction contracting.
Other than receiving ludicrously sparse "construction updates," the school board usually holds most of its conversations about construction in closed session – even conversations that should be held in public in order to create consensus – such as the lengthy discussions over whether or not
Guilford County Schools should build the $72 million airport area high school for which it has failed to find land, and if so, where that land should be found.
School board members will put up with a lot on failing construction projects.
Most of them, in fact, aren't really involved in the school board's $457 million construction program, other than by voting to shovel out money once school board Chairman Alan Duncan and his four-person Architect Selection Committee have picked architects, project managers and contractors for projects.
One thing school board members don't like, however, is projects that run way behind schedule, because that sets their phones ringing off the hook. And the one thing a school board member absolutely, positively, won't put up with is not having a high school in his or her district with a gym or stadium ready for basketball or football season. That's when the calls and emails from parents start getting ugly.
Hence the problem at High Point Central, the poor stepchild of the building program. The $5.3 million budgeted for the school may not be much out of $457 million, but most of it is targeted for the gym. And while the school board has lavished attention on some projects, such as the airport area high school, for which it claimed to have studied 60-odd properties, it doesn't seem to have been doing a very good job of keeping track of the High Point Central project.
The current general contractor for the High Point Central project is KMD Construction LLC of Salisbury. The school board's architect for the project, HH Architecture of Raleigh, claims that numerous elements of the gym project are behind schedule and the gym may not be finished by the Nov. 14 contract deadline.
High Point Central's first basketball game of the season is a Nov. 27 home game against Grimsley High School – and, given the long list of elements HH Architecture claims aren't finished, there's no reason to think a gym that isn't done on Nov. 14 will be magically ready on Nov. 27.
It's actually sad that it takes a sports schedule to force the school board to discuss its construction projects and priorities in public. The North Carolina Open Meetings Law allows boards to discuss land acquisition and legal contracts for land acquisition in closed session before taking action on them in open session. But most of the main problems – and there have been many – that have arisen with the nearly half-billion-dollar construction program could, and in many cases should, have been discussed in open session, so taxpayers and parents wouldn't have been sandbagged when something went wrong.
The two school board members who went medieval on the
Guilford County Schools Facilities Department on Sept. 27 were two of the mildest mannered. That, as much as their breaking the school board code of silence, tells you that they are fed up.
One was school board member Ed Price. High Point Central is in Price's district. The other was school board member Darlene Garrett, who also heavily criticized the gym slowdown, taking the place of High Point school board member Carlvena Foster, who was absent.
Garrett, who sent a scorching email to school board attorney Jill Wilson and others on Sept. 15, said on Thursday that she had received no response, and complained about the lack of progress despite two consecutive contractors. She said, "We just can't let them go on and on not responding to us and not doing the work." She told Wilson something had to be done about replacing KMD.
That triggered a back-and-forth between Garrett and Wilson.
Wilson said that a contractor being behind schedule is not always proof of breach of contract or a justification to remove the company. She said, "Determining whether a contractor is in breach is a complicated issue."
"If they're not doing the work, I don't see how they cannot be in breach of the contract," Garrett replied. "That seems like common sense."
Wilson said that there are standards for a material breach in contract. She said, "Not being responsive can be a breach if it reaches a certain point."
Garrett asked whether the school board was going to discuss the KMD contract in closed session that night. Wilson replied, "Not that I'm aware of."
Guilford County Schools administrators have a tendency to tell the school board what they think it wants to hear, rather than the truth. They told school board members that McNair Elementary School, which is being built on Yanceyville Road, would be finished by the opening of school on August 27, long after it became obvious that was not the case. The bonding company for the McNair contractor has since taken over the project, picked a new contractor and there is as yet no completion deadline for the school.
Administrators followed the same pattern with High Point Central, even as HH Architecture was nagging KMD over the behind-schedule gym project.
At the school board's Saturday, Sept. 22 retreat, Price said there was water under the gym floor – something Facilities Department administrators hadn't mentioned – and pushed them to be up front about the gym schedule. He said, "I think we need to come out and tell the community a date, even if it's further out than they want to hear."
At the Sept. 27 meeting, Price again brought up water under the gym floor. He said, "We've got an issue with the gym floor because of all these delays."
On Friday, Sept. 28, Price castigated the administrators for, he said, not bringing up the water issue. "They never have told the school board that the floor at High Point Central has water under it."
KMD is the second general contractor on the project.
On Nov. 8, 2011, the school board voted unanimously to terminate its contract with Miles Builders of Charlotte, the main contractor on the High Point Central project, which had fallen more than a month behind. The school board claimed that Miles Builders has violated the contract in multiple ways, including falling months behind schedule and not paying subcontractors on time.
In April, the bonding company on the project hired KMD to take over, and, in November 2012, a year after the school board fired Miles Builders, the job still isn't done.
...continued on page 2
Print
Email Link
Feedback
Share
Advanced Search