C&C Engineering has completed their report on the Scarborough High School construction project. The firm was hired by the town to assist code enforcement in their overview of the structural integrity of the building.

The citizens should be relieved that the building doesn’t have major stuctural issues. However, by no means does this report validate that all the work was done in a high quality manner, as was suggested by a school administration official last week. A summary report issued by the code enforcement officer raises the following concerns.

“Full reliance on project RFI (request for information) reports proved somewhat problematic. Destructive testing performed to observe certain construction conditions indicated that it is possible that not all reported field conditions were completed and that some RFIs may not be accurate. The Action Plan focused on a need to uncover two column plates to observe conditions of field corrections made based on the RFI file and questions raised by the third party expert. The uncovered work revealed that the RFIs were not accurate as to what would be found at those locations. In one case, the RFI was incorrect as to what would be found and in the other case the required work was not completed.”

“As a result of the Action Plan, additional inconsistencies were discovered with the work. The Action Plan called for a test pit to expose a short length of foundation wall to observe the condition of the reported cracks. The exposed short length of wall revealed the cracks were acceptable. However, the wall did not have the required waterproofing or insulation.”

To put this in plain language, the change work orders RFIs specify a certain procedure to correct a problem. On the two examples listed, the procedure specified was not done correctly or not done at all. It raises the question of how work was completed on other RFIs. This certainly doesn’t valiadate the quality of the project as one may suggest.

The school administration has gone to great lengths to tabulate the costs of what they have titled the “Messer Inquiry.” It’s absolutely incredulous the construction management team would bill the town $88,000 to explain why work wasn’t done right in the first place.

Let me see if I got this right. A councilor is provided 1,000 photographs of questionable work on a taxpayer funded $27 million project. The councilor, performing his due diligence as an elected representative of the citizenry, asks why the library exterior wall is out of plumb. The construction management team admits that the wall is out of plumb and then charges the town for providing an answer to the question. What a country!

The same holds true for questions asked about anchor bolts being damaged, structural columns not concealed by the wall system thus requiring additional drywall costs, cracking of foundation wall, haunches not being poured under the bathroom masonry wall, and the list goes on. All of these questions were legitimate and the construction management team proved the legitimacy of the questions by the answers they provided.

Imagine you’re buying a new car and you notice the door had a dent that was repaired with bondo. You accept the car as new and then the dealer charges you extra to answer your question as to why the door was damaged. How is that any different than the school district paying for an explanation as to why we’re accepting door frames as new that were damaged and repaired with bondo?

The bottom line is we all want a quality building that is representative of the $27 million that taxpayers invested in the educational infrastructure needs of the town. To play political gamesmanship with questions being asked by elected officials does not serve the public interest well. Paying for answers to these questions is nothing short of ludicrous.

Jeffrey Messer

Scarborough town councilor