School Facility Work Still Questioned

The ongoing saga of replacing doors and doing other construction work at certain schools continued to be a spur in the saddle for some members of the school committee meeting at their last meeting in late February. Superintendent of Schools, Kim Mercer began a facility update report by telling the committee, "I don't know what happened, I did invite Charlie Roberts here tonight, but he's not answering his phone. I did tell him and I asked him to send us an email about what's going on." Roberts is the construction project manager overseeing the companies paid to complete school construction projects. "I thought he would be here to address this, I don't know what happened," said a chagrined Mercer. The committee was not happy. "I'm really not in a bad mood but I want to challenge the terminology that we 'invited him'?" asked at-large committee member Joel Monteiro with a hint of incredulity in his voice. "Well this is a special meeting tonight..." answered Mercer. "He knew about this meeting last week," said Monteiro. "Can we expect him to be here for the next meeting and not invite him," asked Monteiro. "I'll tell him," said Mercer. The already frustrated committee was not happy at what they saw as broken promises. "I'd like to hear from him and see how much we have slipped off schedule from the original timeline," commented Ward 3 member Nathan Cahoon.

"I have a problem already tonight, I can't believe this," said Ward 2 member Tony Ferreira. "If I read the timeline correctly, the project start date was supposed to be February 15th after previous delays anyway. And we're gonna spend $1 million of taxpayers' money," Ferreira said raising his voice loudly. I want an answer right now. I knew this was gonna happen. Get the guy on the phone now," continued Ferreira. "Nobody knows much of anything once again, if I get bamboozled one more time, then I'm gonna become the bamboozler" said an angry Ferreira . "I want the same answers," said Cahoon. "I know Superintendent Mercer asked him (Roberts) to be here tonight. Not sure why he isn't," Cahoon added. "I want an itemized reason why these doors aren't done yet. They were measuring doors at Orlo last week and that should have been done five months ago," stated Ferreira. The committee agreed. Doors in question are from Riverside Middle School, Orlo Avenue and others.