Contractor apologizes for not completing
new science building on time
Published:  October 08, 2014

Contractor Joe Colombo said he didn’t have a lot of excuses in not meeting the deadline for completion of the new Science/Technology buildings at Santa Paula High School.

Colombo appeared before the Santa Paula Unified School District board at their first meeting of October. The buildings were originally scheduled to open on July 1. That deadline was extended to November 1 but Colombo told the board that deadline would not be met as well. He said the school could start moving in on December 1, but the buildings wouldn’t be open for classes until December 29.

Colombo said that since 1975 this project and another school project are the only two that were not completed on time. The new parking lot was supposed to be ready October 15. Colombo said, “Because of some scheduling issues the parking lot will be ready November 7. We actually might have it ready October 23. This whole thing is hinged on the exterior finish of the buildings. That is one reason we are now almost two months behind the schedule.” He said one cause of the delay was that a sub-contractor was showing up only two days a week. Another delay was a problem in finding a way to put in handrails. He said that delay cost them nine weeks.

Colombo said the overall quality of the project is excellent and it doesn’t appear that they’re going to use much of the $800,000 contingency fund. He added that he was proud of his job superintendent. He also noted that they under estimated the complexity of the project and failed to provide the site superintendent with the support he needed. Colombo said they had put in 1,700 hours of overtime trying to meet the deadline. 

Board member Michelle Kolbeck said a big concern has been the impact on the neighbors and the parking. “That isn’t going to go away,” she said. She noted that they need to be good neighbors to their neighbors, referring to construction workers adding to the parking problem. “These neighbors have gone over and above,” she added. “We as a district add to it with all the events and we’ve tried to mitigate that. As a district we ask that you and the construction team please work with our neighbors.”

Colombo replied that, “I thought we had the neighbor thing under control, I guess we don’t.” Board member Tina Urias told him, “I’m glad that you are accepting responsibility for this project and how you have admitted that you didn’t have a lot of excuses for it not being on time. Our kids deserve to be in that building. The kids that are graduating in 2015 deserve to have that building. What I would like to see is that you write a letter to the Santa Paula Times. It’s a letter to the community explaining that you’re responsible for this delay.” Colombo said he would be glad to write a letter. Board President Diana Ponce-Gomez added that a copy of the letter should go out to the district staff.

Student board member Bailey Van Buren said her environmental teacher was really excited about the new science building, and so were the students. “Just to hear that it’s delayed a month or two is really disappointing,” she added. 




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