Lawsuits fly over school construction project

La Conner School District’s months-long wrangling over workmanship with the contractor hired to build the new middle school has finally landed in court.

Since last summer, at the district’s monthly board meet-ings, project manager Bryan Young has been bringing up various “punch list” items that he was working to get Babbit Neuman Construction Company to address.

The upshot is that the school district has still not accepted the new La Conner Middle School building, which opened Sept. 2, as a completed project. That’s because the district says there are construction deficiencies — including big ones like uneven flooring due to warped floor joists and substandard tile in the locker rooms — that the contractor has not fixed.

Therefore, the district has withheld $691,602 from the $11.48 million contractual amount.

In January, the contractor filed a lawsuit in Skagit County Superior Court, alleging that the district was in breach of its contract. But the district didn’t know about the lawsuit because Babbit Neuman did not serve notice of it until after a mediation session on April 12 failed to resolve the dispute.

On Friday, the district an-swered that lawsuit with a counter claim.

A secretary in the Babbit Neuman office said that the firm’s principal, Scott Babbit, does not make it a practice to return reporters’ phone calls.

However, in the lawsuit it filed, the Steilacoom-based contracting company claims it wants the school district to pay it $930,464 plus another $8,384 in interest. The contractor claims that the school district caused the delays by issuing change orders and issuing “improper punch lists” — a construction term for items that need fixing.

The school district’s answer, filed by attorney Darrell Addington, holds that the contractor is the one in breach of contract, and claims Babbit Neuman owes the district another $37,697 in addition to the money the district is already withholding.

The contractor “performed and/or installed defective work and was not in accordance with the contract plans and specifications of which were of poor workmanship and unacceptable quality,” the district’s filing states.

Young, the school district’s project manager, said that when the school opened on Sept. 2, architects and engineers identified more than 210 defects “with multiple occurrences” on the building’s interior and about 90 defects, also with multiple occurrences, on the buildings exterior.

Over the past 8 months, the architect estimates that about 75 percent of the defects have been addressed by the contractor, Young said.

At Monday’s school board meeting, district Superintendent Tim Bruce said that if the contractor won’t complete the work, the district will have to hire someone else to finish the school. The district would have to pay for it and settle the issue in court later, a process that could take years.

Young said the work to finish the building could be performed over the summer if the school board decides to proceed.

The middle school was supposed to be completely finished by Sept. 1. Although the district managed to obtain an occupancy certificate so that school could start on time Sept. 2, there was still lots of work left to do, according to the district.

For example, on Sept. 2, “No siding was on the north side of the building,” Young wrote when asked to detail the defects. Also, the district could not use the gym or the kitchen until Sept. 17 because they weren’t finished.

Even now, there are things left undone, according to Young. For example, precast concrete surfaces must be sealed, a vehicle access gate and trash enclosures lack proper hardware, and the crawl space openings need insect screens. The list of things to finish also includes testing and balancing of air handling equipment, exterior caulking, and more.

Another unresolved issue is a mold cleanup the district paid for after the contractor brought it to the district’s attention during construction in January 2015, but refused to fix.

The district paid $225,771 to have wood mold that grew on structures in the new school’s crawlspace cleaned up. The district contends that the mold, a common occurrence on wet lumber, grew because the contractor failed to keep the materials dry.

Rather than going through a lengthy claims and mediation process over who would pay, the district went ahead and had it addressed to keep the project rolling. It was either fix it “or wait a year and a half with no work being done on the school,” said Addington, the school’s attorney.

The crawlspace has been tested twice by health experts, said Superintendent Bruce, and was clean and mold-free before the start of school. “We don’t mess around when it comes to kids’ health,” he said.

Babbitt Neuman was the low bidder on the middle school portion of the $20 million school construction and renovation project that voters approved in February 2013.

Faber Construction of Lynden was the low bidder on the portion that involved enlarging and renovating the old middle school building to make it the elementary school. According to Young, that project had similar construction characteristics to the one at issue but was finished on time with no problems.

Also, the district recently worked with Tiger Construction of Everson, the low bidder on the upgrade to the school district’s auditorium’s heating and air conditioning — another project finished without problems.