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2009-11-21

2009-11-18

2009-11-05

Agriculture

Lifestyles

Thursday, October 29, 2009 12:00 PM

Who’s at fault for damaged school roofs?

District aims to pinpoint cause, find solution

By COURTNEY SERVAES, Herald Staff Writer

The Ottawa School Board wants to determine whether there is fault.

Fault by the contractor, the architect, the construction manager. Fault anywhere, Superintendent Dean Katt said of two of the district’s buildings with damaged roofs — Garfield Elementary, 1201 College St., and Lincoln Elementary, 1102 Milner St.

School board members received a roof assessment from Greg Leslie, with Garland Co. — a Kansas City-based roofing company — in September regarding damage to all of the district’s buildings. Most of these buildings can be repaired, but the roofs on Garfield and Lincoln need to be replaced, Leslie told board members.

Board members recently hired an outside consultant from Chicago to help determine whether the two elementary building roofs are faulty.

School Board member Marge Stevens recently spoke out about the situation at an Oct. 14 Ottawa Recreation Commission meeting, where ORC board members discussed possible architects for the organization’s new facility. One of those was Lawrence architectural firm Gould and Evans — which currently is working for the Ottawa School Board with its master facilities plan.

Stevens claims that when the board worked with its architect, the district did not receive what it paid for and was left with leaky roofs, poor flooring and problems with the HVAC work in the two buildings.

“So, whatever you do, stay on top of it and make sure you get what you’re supposed to, because we thought we did, but we did not. But now we’re in this business again and the public is out there thinking we did a poor job ... ,” Stevens said. “I don’t want you guys to be in that position.”

Katt said he wasn’t sure who was responsible for the leaky roofs, but he’s hoping the consultant from Chicago will be better able to determine that.

“Once those results are determined, they will be discussed in an open meeting,” Katt said.

That meeting is expected to be in about two weeks and would help the school board determine what recourse it has to recover repair costs, Katt said.