McAnally roof concerns GCSC

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

In what became a drastic shift in the tone of the GCSC monthly school board meeting Monday night, the discussion changed from a demonstration of the emerging success of the 1:1 technology integration to issues regarding the McAnally roof project.

What started out as a recommendation presented to the board by Brendan Baker of Moisture Management, turned into a byzantine explanation of exactly why and who is responsible for the failure to complete the project by the Aug. 4 date specified in the contract when senior project manager Larry Fattig, of Brazos Urethane out of Texas, was provided the opportunity to explain his position at the end of the board meeting.

With Baker's presence having been made an official agenda item, he was able to discuss his recommendations freely as part of the meeting.

While Baker placed the blame for the lack of progress on the inefficiency of Brazos, Fattig stood up in the back of the audience and pointed out that he was in attendance and able to respond to the accusations being made by Baker.

Fattig was informed that he would be able to comment until the end of the meeting under the "comments from the audience" portion of the agenda but by the time he was granted the audience, Baker had already left the meeting.

Needless to say, this lack of a real-time dialogue between the two representatives only created a fuzzier explanation of how the project has progressed, why it is lagging behind schedule and whether Brazos is equipped to finish the job before the cold of winter demands putting a pause on the project until June.

From the perspective of the school board, there appears to be a lot of claims, documentation and a bit of finger pointing to sift through.

The way these projects work is that the school corporation hires Moisture Management, a firm that it has past experience with, and Moisture Management in turn hires a roofing company, in this case Brazos Urethane out of Texas.

With the Brazos contract estimating an Aug 4. completion date, the dialogue Monday night was about what to do next.

Baker recommended that upon finishing the second dome at McAnally (placing the project at 58 percent completion), the project should be put on pause until June and that GCSC should consider hiring a different company for the remainder of the project.

According to Baker, the finishing of the second dome would be an obvious stopping point. But, Baker also agreed with concerns that the board had regarding potential issues with having two different firms working on one project.

He also pointed out that keeping Brazos on the job and imposing weekly fines until June is an option but given what he'd seen from the timeliness of the work, did not recommend that option.

The board raised numerous concerns with both approaches.

If Brazos were to remain as the contractor to complete the work, but was being fined weekly until June, the board was curious what kind of motivation would be there for the company to do a good job.

They were also concerned about whether or not such fines would bankrupt or seriously injure the company and further exacerbate the issue.

Baker acknowledged these concerns and agreed with them, though ultimately he still felt that re-bidding the project for the fall was the best course of action.

Baker also cited a lack of documentation and paperwork provided by Brazos to Moisture Management showing ordering expenses, rainy day delays and inventory lists for a large series of items that are currently being housed in a storage warehouse in Greencastle, awaiting completion of the project.

One point of contention that became important later in the meeting was that Baker claimed Moisture Management had not received, among a slew of missing paperwork, an official, documented claim of rain-day delays despite the fact that Brazos has cited 27 days of rain delays as a key issue.

All of these issues became even more difficult to navigate because as Baker provided this information to the board, putting the blame quite squarely on the shoulders of Brazos, Fattig was not allowed to rebut or clarify until the end of the meeting.

Baker left the meeting shortly after making his argument and recommendation.

Fast forward to the end of the meeting, when Fattig was given a chance to provide the perspective of Brazos.

Fattig responded to the array of issues brought forth by Baker.

Fattig was brought on as the second project manager after the first project manager was determined not to have been up to the job.

Baker himself pointed out the differences between Fattig and his predecessor, citing Fattig as a competent foreman producing high-

quality work, albeit he felt it was done too late and that Fattig was still operating his crew too slowly.

"There's 100 percent increase in quality of application (with the introduction of Fattig), no doubt about it," Baker said earlier in the night.

Accepting that the job had started late, Fattig still corrected the time frame that had been provided by Baker, shaving nearly two weeks off Baker's estimate.

Fattig also confidently explained that he and Brazos do daily reports on iPads as a matter of practice, that he had been sending reports each Monday to Moisture Management and that the claim by Baker that he had not received any documentation seemed baffling.

Fattig continued by speaking directly to the issue of the rain days saying that they have indeed incurred 27 rain days but that the company has been sending all of this data to Moisture Management.

He further explained that in the business of urethane roofing, a rain day can be caused by minimal moisture as the urethane will bubble and application will not be satisfactory if any moisture is present on the roofing surface.

Again, without Baker present to rebuke or discuss how and who Fattig had been sending the information to his company, it seemed difficult to know what to make of the issue.

The board requested that Fattig forward the documents in question to school officials, specifically to Director of Transportation and Maintenance Dan Green.

Fattig appeared quite content to provide this information.

Another point of contention between Fattig and Baker was the estimate of how long the job would take to complete and how long into the winter the Brazos team could work.

Baker estimated that it would require at least 2-3 weeks to finish the second dome, at which point the weather may start to turn and prevent a completion of the rest of the job, the so-called "flat roofs."

Fattig insisted to the board that as long as there are dry days that allow for work, he and his crew could finish the second dome this week and would be able to complete the project with only 2-3 weeks of good weather.

He also cited Brazos' extensive experience and history performing similar jobs, including working in Chicago in November.

Fattig pointed out that if anybody knows what it's like in the "Windy City in November," that Brazos can surely work in Greencastle long enough to complete the job.

Although the two had opposing viewpoints, and Baker was not present for the end of the meeting, Baker did seem to be interested in the most cost effective, highest quality resolution available for GCSC.

"If we can work at night in good weather and...can do a quality job I'm all for it," he said during his address.

Regular board meeting attendee Wayne Lewis spoke up when Fattig had finished Brazos' perspective of the project, citing his experience with construction and knowledge of craftsmanship to agree with a point made by Fattig that waiting until June to finish the project could prove catastrophic.

Finishing the domes while deciding not to complete the lower, "flat roof" section would only result in an unfinished infrastructure to become more damaged as water leaks into the roof and expands as a result of not being sealed properly.

Fattig wholeheartedly agreed with Lewis on this matter.

It is unclear on what Moisture Management's position is in response to Fattig's insistence that they have in fact been following a highly organized, highly documented process that should have kept Moisture Management and the school board informed of progress or lack thereof, as well as procedural decisions made by Brazos.

Other issues discussed at the meeting, including a presentation which showcased the excitement and success around recent 1:1 technology implementation will be provided in a subsequent story in the Banner Graphic.

Updates on the evolution of the McAnally roof project and the decision of the school board will be included in follow-up stories as changes are made available by the school board.

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  • Why so much detail on the roof repairs, when a few weeks ago we couldn't get a single sentence about the new guns-on-school-grounds policy?

    -- Posted by Ben Dover on Wed, Aug 20, 2014, at 8:23 AM
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