Posted on 06/25/2008 10:09:25 AM PDT by freespirited
Nearly 150 windows installed last year in Northwest’s Shepherd Elementary School will be replaced this summer at a cost of roughly $6,300 each, and parents are hopeful the District’s new contractor will be an improvement over the last “catastrophe.”
Roughly 140 rotting wooden windows at Shepherd, located on 14th Street just north of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, were replaced in 2007 at a cost of $4,042 per window under a contract awarded by the D.C. Public Schools to the Timonium-based Orlando J. Sales Painting Co.
In December, Allen Lew, director of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, terminated the deal for “substandard” work. It was the third time since Lew took over school renovations that he’d fired a contractor.
“The first contractor botched the job,” said Lannette Woodruff, mother of a Shepherd third-grader. “They were not installed right. It was a catastrophe.”
Many of the windows installed by OJS were “too small for their respective masonry openings” as a result of the company mis-measuring, according to a May 5 letter from Lew to Orlando J. Sales, president of the company. Gaps between the windows and the walls were filled with wood frames.
Lew deducted $431,769 from the balance of the OJS contract, a matter that is now in litigation.
He recently awarded a $1.37 million contract to the Gilford/United Association to install 215 new windows in two buildings on the campus. The price tag: Roughly $6,372 each, and the work must be done by Aug. 15.
“I do have optimism this time,” said Lovell Saunders, whose son will enter second grade in the fall. “I think Lew and his staff understand the issue now. They came in themselves and saw the shoddy work the last contractor did.”
Tony Robinson, Lew’s spokesman, said the new windows are of higher quality and require a larger outlay up front in order to reap the benefits down the road.
“If looking for the best value means paying a little more for a product that’s going to last 50 to 80 years, then that’s the product that will be chosen,” he said.
D.C.’s contracting community, Robinson said, “really needs to step up its game when it’s working on D.C. Public School projects.” By removing contractors, he said, Lew has “sent a message.”
The phone line at OJS headquarters was busy all day Monday.
That is D.C. for ya.
MDOT Minority and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program
I would have done them for a lousy grand apiece! My profit margin would only be 400%, but what the hey!
The District is always a source of pitiful joke making.
This government is DC couldn’t make toast. It is either too stupid, too lazy, or too corrupt.
And it wants to be a state? Sure, that’s a great idea.
“is” in second graph s/b “in”
My guess is that Allen Lew is going to be looking for a job soon.
If Robert Mugabe were in charge of D.C. it’d be an improvement.
Everything goes better with coke!
I’ll do it for $3K each
Well at least the students will have nice windows to stare out of.
ping for later
Are they bullet proof?
Wasn’t there an article about a year or so ago about how the DC public schools were treated by the Army Corps of Engineers to new boilers a few years ago, and through the lack of maintenance, the boilers are all but kaput now?
If they had to sell candy to buy windows they would be shopping at home depot. When it’s not your money though...nothing but the best. The sky is the limit.
Ping for clarity and accuracy.
In D.C. it’s much simpler. Just a few bribes here and there.
:-)
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