- By Hugh Bahar
- Opinions
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After sitting on two school Facilities Committees and knowing the issues with the schools, I believe that the flyer the BOE released does a good job of communicating the proposed changes and their underlying justifications.
I think that the proposed improvements and additions that have resulted from months of spirited committee debate stand a great chance of passage now that the scope has been narrowed to what is truly necessary. Personally, I will be voting for proposition 1 and 2 as I think that they are very well balanced, although a bit pricey for what will be delivered.
It is important to realize, however, that many, many well-meaning school projects have failed to deliver. This may happen because of poor initial design, poor construction techniques and quality control, or poor commissioning of the building and it's systems-especially Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems.
It seems that many of the corporations involved in school construction know that it can be a racket, and they come in from out of town to maximize their profits at the expense of the district. They are infrequently held accountable by understaffed districts, and they know that the odds of getting away with shoddy workmanship are in their favor.
As this project unfolds, it is incumbent upon the BOE and Mr. Lewis to ensure that we hire independent, competent project management and construction management personnel that will be on the job site daily. Every dollar spent in this area nets up to a ten-fold return on investment by the end of the job.
Even if NY State won't pay for this level of project oversight, the Lansing community needs to. Waiting for a code inspector or State inspector to "inspect-in" quality after the fact will yield poor compliance with our expectations.
Let's make sure that if this project happens, we support the BOE and Mark Lewis as-needed, so that they may obtain the independent oversight necessary to assure that the architect, civil contractor, mechanical contractor, equipment suppliers and building commissioning team turn over a working facility that does everything we are paying for and expecting it to do-on time, on budget, on scope and thoroughly commissioned.
If community support for this project begins and ends with a pull of the lever, the consequences could be a renovation/addition project that is over budget, fails to deliver on the project scope, is poorly constructed and needs to be reworked, is inefficient and expensive to operate, and gets tied up in years of litigation...followed by a new capital project to repair or recommission it.
From: Hugh Bahar