Last Monday Box Butte County Commissioners Mike McGiniss and Doug Hashman voted to sign a certificate of substantial completion form with contentions. Commissioner Susan Lore was absent.
Despite finishing construction work earlier this summer, Willdan and the county have talked about several projects that have had issues or have not been completed.
One of the biggest problems that was discussed during the recent meeting was a leaking air conditioning unit located in the district courtroom.
“We have a few things that need to be fixed yet (…) and I think you are aware of most of them,” Hashman said.
Wildan Construction Field Engineer Chris Barton, who spoke via a phone conference, asked Box Butte County Courthouse Facilities Maintenance Supervisor Lori White to provide a checklist of all the problems that need to be fixed.
Barton said his goal was to have the problems fixed within the next week so the paperwork can be signed.
When Barton asked commissioners if they were okay with agreeing to sign the completion form at a later date, the commissioners discussed the various issues with courthouse projects, including carpet stains and leakage in the district courtroom, holes in the floor in the first story men’s bathroom and numerous problems.
“We’re reluctant,” Hashman said. “We don’t want to sign this certificate of completion until we’re
complete. We want to change that date to probably, now probably be Sept. 1.”
McGinnis and Hashman agreed to authorize the chairman of the board to sign the documents, reluctantly. McGiniss suggested setting the warranty dates as the same day.
Barton said the units under warranty were being used prior to the date the commissioners were asking to start the warranties. Warranty dates for the new units installed were set by Barton as June 22 and July 13.
“That’s not, honestly, really fair to my contractors. Mainly because you guys have had the system for three months now running under your guys’ usage. So, that’s not really fair to my contractors, that’s why we’re looking at the dates we’re looking at,” Barton said in response to changing all warranty dates to July 14 or Aug. 1 by the commissioners.
Box Butte County Attorney Terry Curtiss brought up issues that caused problems for courthouse employees and the unfairness caused by the circumstances.
“You don’t want to start talking about fairness, Chris without talking about the fact the judge put up with water leaks in his courtroom and a bunch of other stuff,” Curtiss.
In response to Curtiss talking about the judge having water leaks in the courtroom Barton said, “I understand your frustration with that,” Barton said, noting the leaks were not covered under the warranty. Barton said the computer program that communicates with the air conditioning unit malfunctioned and caused the leaks. Barton said the system was in use about a month prior to the warranty going into effect.
Curtiss said he did not think the form should be signed until all the repairs were made, noting the new heating system was not in use yet.
“Well, you say we got a 12-month warranty starting in June, but we don’t even have the system in operation for, say it’s October, that’s still August, September, October that we’re basically being charged a warranty on a system we don’t know is currently operational,” Curtiss said.
“It is operational,” said Barton, noting that the system has been tested, even though it is not currently in operation.
Hashman reiterated that McGinnis would sign the document, but noted there would be objections to the signing.
“We already said Mike was going to sign it, so, I guess you’ll get a letter with our objections to the dates and the reasoning why. Then, next spring, if something happens 10 days out of warranty, you will refer to your letter.”
After some more discussion, the commissioners unanimously voted to authorize McGinnis to sign the documents.
“It didn’t appear like we were going to make much headway,” Hashman said after the vote. McGinnis agreed with Hashman.