The local fishwrapper reported today that the new chain link fence surrounding Sandwich High School is to protect people entering or exiting the building from being killed by falling pieces of concrete. According to the wrapper, a piece of concrete "measuring five feet long and weighing several hundred pound, fell from a third-story window." shortly after the Special Town Meeting adjourned on October 22.
Does anybody see a warranty/liability issue when a "several hundred pound" piece of concrete falls off of a 13 year old building?
Maybe this was a Sign From God about the quality of the Town's dedication to deferred maintenance? (Or at least the advisability of accepting the lowest bid for construction jobs!)
No word on repair costs, or on the extent of the problem. An engineering firm has been hired to assess the problem and hire a construction firm to do the (as yet undermined) repairs.
4 comments:
Equally amusing and curios in this week’s Enterprise paper was the story of a complaint letter being sent by Bud and the Selectmen to the state to complain about Charter School budgets.
The letter is to point out to the state that Sturgis does not operate under Prop 2 ½ limits and suggest that they should.
In a related story reported in the paper, both Dr Canfield and Bud separately reported to the BOS that they too are unable to maintain level services under a 2 ½ budget scenario.
Apparently, nobody at the BOS or the Enterprise appreciates the irony.
Engineering study? I instantly thought it was be caused by crappy concrete and settling. It happens. I'm sure there are about 20 masons in town that could have this inspected, and repaired in about 5 days. But if you want to drag it out and cost us money what choice do we have? The end result will be same. The concrete gets repaired. But then again, we love to ignore our crumbing buildings because then we get to build new ones.
Anonymous 1 is correct.
In the private sector, you’d have called a mason, maybe two or three. You’d have had them inspect, you’d have collected quotes, and initiated repairs. Very likely repairs would have been begun week 1.
In government, the school building supervisor would call the Town Engineer and Building Inspector and maybe other town employees too. Next they’d call a few more town employees and talk about what to do. Next, they’d hire a fence company and rent fences to cordon off the work area. All this would take 2 maybe 3 weeks. Then, they’d agree that they don’t know enough themselves to fix the problem and they’d hire an engineer and maybe an architect too. Sometimes they’d also hire a project manager. Then somebody would call some masons. The masons would inspect and provide quotes. Then somebody in town would review the quotes and then hire the mason to repair the building. Remarkably, I have probably oversimplified and understated steps in how the government process would actually work.
Any one wonder why the town has budget issues?
Lets not forget that the town will also have to pay for the repairs at a higher rate than the private sector would pay for the very same work. State law requires this. Who says unions arent influencial?
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