The team that visited the Tribune editorial personnel to give teachers' views of the schools that resulted in the recent scathing editorial on the Spring and Ms. Elia's greed will meet with Kurdell's opponent Steve Gorham on May 6th to discuss his views in the race.

Meeting is at 4:30 p.m. at Bart Birdsall's house--Bart of the infamous trashing by Kipley egged on by Elia, the guy who fought back and who lived to tell the tale. Join us. Everyone is welcome.

Bart Birdsall
2309 W. Bristol Ave.
Tampa, FL 33609
home (813) 258-8817
cell (813) 362-7937
Montolino@aol.com

lee

Continuation of the legal files of the Doug Erwin case:

There are also other problems that we’ve experienced in new construction. The roofs have consistently been problems on both old and new buildings. In order to solve these problems, it was recommended by an outside group (one of the people on that committee was Bill Shields who talked to me several times about some of the mistakes he feels we are making in roofing.) that we hire a roofing consultant to monitor our roofs while they are being built.

That position was given to Mr. Blackwell to fill. Mr. Blackwell did not fill the position. We continue to experience roof problems and I requested that the position be transferred to me and I’d be given permission to hire a person. Again that was based more than anything else, on a conversation with Mr. Shields urging that we do this. I thought that I was going to be able to hire for that position and advertised then was told by Mr. Biackwell that he may need that position. We still have many roof problems. We still don’t have a consultant or expert to monitor roofing projects.

The wall strictures have been serious problems. We still have excessive amounts of cracks and water intrusion through the walk A few examples of schools that were really bad when I first cn in - Hunter’s Green and Mlntz Elememtary. At Mintz there was water intrusion in more than 90 percent of the classrooms. Hunter’s Green was not much better, Valrico, - I could name school after school that has water intrusion problems.

Paint failures thoughout the district. Walden Lake has been painted four times now and needs to be painted again. I see new schools that we’ve occupied this fall, and I have already been asked to go look and see that it needs painting - Davidsen Middle School, for exainple. We have paint failure at Wharton and Sickles, wrestling with both of those at this time; also wrestling with water intrusion in those places We’ve had excessive problems with fire alarms and other mechanical devices in our new facilities. I don’t think we could name anything that there hasn’t been more problems than there should be. I understand that there will always be problems. But I don’t understand the number of problems we experience and the continuation of these. I understand value engineering but when you value engineer, then you expect price to possibly come down significantly - I have not seen that. I have seen quality decline, If we are doing everything we are doing and making the mistakes we are making, in the name of economics, we need to reevaluate and provide a facility that is safer and longer lasting and provide better quality for our youngsters.

I’ve heard other discussions, or been part of them in Operations Staff meetings, and I’ll give a couple of examples of those. Blake 115 — we kept looking for ways to hold down costs (Grounds would do work, we did the community planting, and other things) still, in spite of that, I heard constant conversation of the excessive cost of that building. All parts of the building: the grounds, athletic facilities, auditorium, gymnasium, stadium mall costs combined were extravagant. A plan was developed by Mr. Blackwell and was presented to the board in order for it to look better publicly the cost of the building was figured on a square footage per student space; however, Mr. Tom Blackwell admitted in staff that he figured things that the state did not allow.

He counted buildings other than classroom space and space other than what was allowable to make it look better than what it was in terms of cost per square foot. When questioned by Dr. Hamilton: why this had been done, Tom Blackwell made a statement that concerns me greatly. Mr. Blackwell stated, “Well boss, you’ve always said if the Superintendent’s fired, we’re all gone. If the public ever finds out the total truth about the cost of this building and what is going on there, we could all lose our jobs.”

We were paying more but it didn’t seem to me, that we were getting a better facility. As an example, the building looks great with the brick, but according to Mr. Harry Howard, who confirmed what I had already been told by our safety office, the building only meets minimum wind resistance because there is no block in it. It’s a brick structure but it does not have an interior block wall, which weakens the entire structure. There are other problems we have experienced within that building, particularly with the fire alarm. The issue is why would Mr. Blackwell make that statement? Why would we not supply honest information to the board, honest information to the public?

Had a similar situation at Riverview MS where we had substituted the cement pillars for H-beams. It was my understanding by the conversation between Mr. Blackwell and Dr. Hamilton that the metal H-beams were an inferior product so far as stability goes and that they did not cost the contractor anymore, but we paid a significant extra amount to allow the substitution. The only excuse that I heard given was that we would get the building sooner. At that point I asked a question, “Well if I understand this correctly, the building is not as strong as it would have been, the construction is not as good as it would have been, and we’re paying extra to get a building early that we should get on time anyway. As a result of getting the building earlier, that means it would be an additional savings to the contractor?’

We did not leave staff with an answer to why we were paying extra money other than it was to be presented to the board as a credit and that we would get the building sooner. I told my wife that I wanted to watch the Board meeting that night, and as I watched the Board as we got to that item, Mr. Newsome commended the staff on the savings that we had provided and the good job we had done. I still don’t understand how we were commended for that Maybe I misunderstood the whole concept. Maybe I misunderstood the whole conversation. That’s certainly a possibility because I’m not an expert in construction, but WI did understand the conversation as I thought it was presented between Dr. Hamilton and Mr. Blackwell, and if I understood the answer as I felt it was given to me when I asked the question, that’s what happened.

Also, I don’t understand that often we will find a serious flaw in a building or something that hasn’t been completed and no one is held responsible at all. Other times if they are held responsible then there is a limited amount of money we receive versus the actual cost of the project.

Again, I go back to Durant MS. The cost of that facility did not go down but the quality did. If the information I received is correct, we were to have four major AC units and we ended up with three, which limited the capacity. You will find in the report, cooling capacity shortfalls in many of our failing systems. Not only that, we were supposed to have insulated ductwork at Durant - we had none. As a result of that there was sweating, which soaked all the ceiling tiles, which fell in, and caused air quality problems.


The auditorium at Durant filled with water and we ended up with what was almost - equivalent to a swimming pool in the auditorium that had to be corrected. Specifications called for solid doors, instead we got hollow doors throughout Durant. It was a tremendous cost and maintenance problem to change those. I was told by Maintenance East that in a short period of time we had over 2000 maintenance requests for that facility. I understand that we did get a little bit of money to cover some of that but just recently a million dollars was allocated to attempt to fix the air conditioning. Another situation is right after that building was built, at Sickles 115, the same incident occurred with the doors. It was discovered after the fact, I learned in staff today, which is October 23, 2000. That issue was discussed, Mr. Blackwell said that nobody would hold the contractor responsible simply because he may go bankrupt if we did this.

I’ve heard this story too often.

Similar story exists at Walker Middle School where we received a terrible construction project that was late and needs painting and has all kinds of problems. I guess I’ve covered about as much as I can at this particular time Again, I want to emphasize that I don’t know why we have the construction problems we have but it’s just obvious to me there are problems. I’m tired of sitting in staff and trying to find creative ways to present the problem or in my terminology, I sometimes call it finding creative ways to present the real truth.

I think the entire situation needs to be looked at and if nothing else, changing the way we do business. I have told the Superintendent and others I don’t ever want to go to a selection process if I’m going to be told that it doesn’t make any difference - that other factors based on who people know and who they’ve supported politically will get the work - then continue to see some of the poor products that we’re getting. A good source of this information to look at the products that we have gotten is my Air Conditioning and Special Projects Departments. Clay Ward in Special Projects, just today, sat in staff (October 23, 2000) and talked about problems associated with Wharton 115. As I said, these problems have not gone away. I hope with the risk I’m taking in revealing some of these conversations that appropriate action will be taken.
Thank you,

Doug Erwin, General Director of Operations