“Town Hires Lawyer Amid Kendall Dean Delays”

“According to Council President Paul Vadenais, who serves on the Municipal Buildings Review Task Force overseeing the project, the issues revolved around the timeline of the project and the lack of work completed as of a few weeks ago”. - Valley Breeze “Town Hires Lawyer Amid Kendall Dean Delays” 8/14/2019

Sorry but I don’t believe for one minute that the town hired Attorney Chris Whitney at a rate of $375 per hour for the reason given by Council President Vadenais.

Mr. Vadenais’ committee (the MBRTF) met in closed session with Attorney Whitney for the first time on July 24, 2019 under an agenda item described as “Potential Litigation”. They met again in closed session on August 5, 2019 using the same agenda item with the town’s lawyers (including Whitney) and Calson Corporation’s representatives (including Calson’s lawyer) for well over an hour. Later that same evening the Town Council met with Attorney Whitney in closed session for another hour.

Calson Corporation’s contract already includes a penalty clause in the event work isn’t completed on time, so delays aren’t a big issue at this point. The true “issues” revolve around who is going to pay the cost for changes in the plans. At the time the contract was awarded to Calson Corporation, Mr. Vadenais assured the Council the town would pay no costly change orders since the contract terms allegedly ensured the contractor would bear the brunt of the burden with regard to the cost of change orders. To date however, the town has approved payment of several change orders which have totaled over $100,000 so it’s a safe bet the closed session “potential litigation” discussions focused on who has to pay for future and/or pending change orders, and what can be done to avoid more of them down the road.

Clues to the money issues are obvious by key phrases in the article like “…adjustments to the elevator shaft” and “The project also ran into difficulties with the electrical connection, with the contractor and Task Force eventually settling on an 800 amp service that will require them to purchase a new generator for the building.”

Back in 2017 townspeople were assured by the Municipal Building Review Task Force (MBRTF) that the Kendall Dean renovation project would be under construction in the spring of 2018 “with occupancy by spring of 2019 at the latest”. Neither of those deadlines were met, but we’re now spending $375 per hour to discuss a possible delay in completion? Sorry, I’m not that gullible.

Let’s hope the contractor gets stuck with the cost of any future change orders instead of the taxpayers. It’s bad enough there wasn’t enough money to go forward with renovations to the police station as promised; additional cost over-runs would add insult to injury.

Link to Valley Breeze article: http://bit.ly/2KErMAJ

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