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Years of litigation
and expense for the Saranac Lake School District came to an end last
night when the school board voted to approve a settlement offer from
contractors blamed for problems with a capital building project.
The deal, which comes
a month before the case was scheduled to go to trial, means Pike
Company of Rochester, EYP Architecture and Engineering of Albany and
Ryan Biggs Associates of Troy will pay the district $2.58 million
dollars – quote – “in exchange for full and final release of all
claims between all parties past, present and future.”
A resolution
accepting the settlement offer was approved unanimously by the
school board following an executive session last night.
School Superintendent
Gerry Goldman called it a “slam-dunk” and a victory for the
district’s taxpayers, whom he thanked for their patience and
support. “We worked very hard to get the taxpayers money back,” he
said. “We worked very hard to try and make them whole again. We
realize they trusted us with this money initially to do a job and
build buildings for kids. We felt strongly that these companies had
an ethical responsibility to make this right and we were determined
to pursue it.”
The agreement ends a
lawsuit the district filed five years ago against the three
contractors after discovering structural problems in three school
buildings that were added onto in the late 1990’s.
An engineer hired by
the district – Dr. Paul Carr – found the swelling and cracking of
floors and walls was caused by expansion of a substitute,
pyrite-based fill used in the new construction at Bloomingdale
Elementary, Petrova Elementary and Middle School and Saranac Lake
High School.
Costly and
complicated remediation work – involving demolition, removal of the
fill and reconstruction – has been completed at Bloomingdale and
Petrova. Work at the high school has been taking place this
summer.
Fixing the problems
has cost the district more than $4 million, an amount greater than
the $2.58 million settlement.
But Goldman said
they’re expecting to get more than 50 percent of their money back in
state aid and will now be able to pay off what they’ve had to
borrow. “We recovered enough to feel like this is a big victory,” he
said.
John Muldowney, the
school district’s attorney, said they had a strong case, but there
was no way of knowing how much could have been won if the lawsuit
went to trial.
He noted that the
case has spanned three different superintendents and numerous school
board members. He said his firm – Fischer, Bessette and Muldowney
of Malone – was given “a tremendous amount of support and
discretion” by the district to pursue the case until an appropriate
resolution was reached for the taxpayers.
“The fact that the
defendants were coming around to the idea that we were fully
prepared to take this to trial brought them to the table ready to
really put down some serious money. We negotiated like crazy and
came out with what I think was a good result.”
Without the work of
Dr. Carr, Muldowney added, the case could have had a very different
result.
He’s hopeful the
taxpayers will be pleased with the outcome. “I think the taxpayers
should be happy about a couple of things. One is that the way the
numbers will work out in this case [the taxpayers] will be made
whole. But, more importantly they have a superintendent and a
school board that’s willing to stand behind them and do the right
thing.”
Attorneys
representing the three contractors made the settlement offer to
Muldowney at roughly 6 p.m. Wednesday – a half hour before last
night’s school board meeting.
The case had been
scheduled to go to trial before State Supreme Court Judge David
Demarest on September 22.
-Chris Knight,
8-21-08 |