The November Board of Education meeting was extremely busy as Joseph Guidice, from the construction manager, Kreisler Borg Florman (KBF), reported on the progress taking place at Stratford and Stewart Elementary Schools and the board of education announced the names of the members of the newly created budget advisory committee in addition to announcing their rejection of all the bids for the middle school project, following the threat of legal action from one of the general construction contract contenders.

The Garden City Board of Education had originally planned to approve the contracts for general contracting, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and windows at their Nov. 6 special meeting but tabled that item after A.M. Construction, one of the three low bidders for the general contracting portion of the project, argued that they were the low bidder and should have been given the contract, not Benjamin Kurzban & Son Inc., the company the district had selected. The wording of the requests for bids asks for not only the lowest bidder but the lowest responsible bidder and in a letter handed out to everyone at the Nov. 6 board meeting, Jay Edmond Russ, the lawyer for A.M. Construction Enterprises LLC, claims that despite information to the contrary from KBF, not enough effort was made to contact the references given by his client. At that time the board of education tabled not only the award of bid for the general contracting portion of the project but all five portions of the project.

At the Nov. 20 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education, School Board President Linda Leone announced that the board has decided to reject all the bids for the general construction contract for the middle school and would be revising the relevant bid documents and re-soliciting bids. According to Leone this decision was made upon the advise of counsel, and with the input of the district's architect and construction manager.

"The district determined that the three lowest bidders failed to comply with certain aspects of the bid specification pertaining to prior experience, among other issues. Furthermore, none of the bidders were able to adequately supplement their submissions to the district in this regard," stated Leone. "Given this situation, the district would have been required to depart from the objective criteria of the bid documents to make any award of the general construction contract. The district believes that such a decision would have been inappropriate and inconsistent with its objective of conducting fair and open competition."

Leone went on to say, "In order to avoid a similar result upon re-solicitation, the district has pressed its consultants, Gisolfi Associates and KBF, to reassess the experience and related criteria in the bid documents, to determine whether a recasting of those criteria might induce a broader bidder pool, leading to a greater price competition, without a material erosion of the important assurances of competence and quality." She added that the consultants have completed that task.

Following her statement, Leone added that the bids would be going out shortly and the district hopes to be able to award the project in December. When questioned by resident Mort Yuter, as to why the other four portions of the project had not been awarded if the only problem was with the general contracting portion of the project, Frank Crane, the district's architect from Gisolfi Associates, explained that they have asked the other four contractors, who had the lowest responsible bids on those portions of the project, to hold their prices for 30 days while the district goes out to rebid on the general contracting portion. According to Crane this way all the contracts can be awarded at the same time and all five contractors will be on the same timeline.

Resident Joseph Calamari, then questioned what changed since the time the board was set to award the contract on Nov. 6 that now the board has said none of the bidders met the criteria. He questioned whether the board had been given "misinformation" that would have made them put the award of the bid on the agenda for that evening. Leone answered that the board had not been given misinformation, but had additional information come to light after the agendas were printed. Maureen Cornacchia commended the board for their courage in rejecting the bids after the agendas were printed. "I am much happier that the board was willing to reject the contracts and go out and do it again rather than accept contracts just because they are on the agenda and I think it is a very responsible move," she said.

With regard to the other portions of the district's capital improvement project, Guidice noted that there has been a "significant amount of progress" at the elementary schools since he last spoke at the October board meeting. He noted that at Stewart School work has begun on the back parking lot and they are getting ready to do some curb work. Inside the building, the boilers are up and running and they are waiting for health approval for the fuel oil tank, according to Guidice. There has also been a significant amount of progress at the new additions to that building, said Guidice. He noted that most of the drywall is up, a lot of the support systems for the ceilings are in place and the roofs are completed.

At Stratford, said Guidice, you can actually see what the new addition, where the library and cafeteria will be located, is going to look like when it is complete. The scaffolding has come down and the ceilings are up for that addition and they are currently doing the finishing work inside the addition, such as the ceramic tile and the wainscoting. He stated that there were some delays with regard to electrical work, which they expected to have settled with LIPA last week. He added that there have also been some delays on the site work at Stratford because there were some problems moving the temporary classrooms but they expected that to be settled this week.

Lynn Hayes expressed her frustration that six weeks previously Guidice told everyone that the Stratford spaces would be up and running by mid-November and they are still not completed and questioned what the current delay was. Guidice noted that in addition to the problems with the temporary classrooms, they lost about 10 days due to welding issues and there were also some problems because the heat had not yet been turned on in the addition at that point and they needed heat in order for the sealant for the floor to be effective. They had expected to turn the heat on the day after the board meeting and Guidice said that, as of Nov. 20 the consultants thought that they were within a week of being able to occupy the space.

Crane added that they are just passing along the information that they receive from the five different contractors, whose only tie is this one project. Crane added, "We're also trying to be sure and not jump the gun and occupy a space that we call substantially complete, which may not have certain things done." He noted that though they were able to occupy classrooms that were substantially complete, they did not want to move into the new addition until it was 100 percent complete because it would end up being even more of a disruption for the students and the staff if the workers came back to finish the job every evening. In addition, he said, this would limit finger-pointing between the contractors and the school district if any damage is done after they move into the space.

One resident requested that if they were not going to give realistic dates that the consultants not give any target date. "We come once a month," said Crane. "With construction it's a moving target every single day. That schedule moves every single day. We can leave a meeting at 9 a.m. thinking that we are doing something tomorrow and by 4 p.m. things can change so it's very difficult to keep you abreast of that information in a monthly report." Guidice added that they also use the target dates as a management tool to give the five contractors a date to meet.

Leone acknowledged the frustration felt by parents, but reminded those present that the same delays are faced by homeowners or anyone who has construction work done. "I understand that you are asking what you can realistically expect, and probably at this point nothing better than a statement saying, 'as soon as possible.'"

The board also appointed James Kirscher, from the WPOA; Patrick Donnelly, an attorney and executive vice president for Sirius; Roy Gordon, a retired executive who is an Ad Hoc professor at Hofstra; George Tietjen, from the CPOA; John Imperiale, from the EPOA; Maureen Cornacchia, from the PTA; Colleen Foley, from the Estates; and J.R. Rieger. from SEPTA to the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee for Budget Development. Board of Education Trustee Ken Monaghan will be serving as the liaison for this newly created committee.