SOUTHWICK – At Wednesday night’s Park and Recreation meeting the committee discussed an issue with the lighting project at Whalley Park.
The Parks and Recreation Commission voted in favor of declining the contractor’s extension request at Wednesday night’s meeting. (WNG File Photo)
The contractor for the project, J & L Construction out of West Springfield, had requested to have an extension on their contract from the original deadline of March 30, 2017. Jason Larochelle, who works for J & L Construction and was present at the meeting, noted a couple of reasons why the company wanted to extend the contract.
The first factor being the anchor bolts used for the street lighting were not delivered on time to J & L. According to Larcohelle, the parts didn’t arrive until March 29, nearly six weeks after the process to purchase them began on Feb. 17.
The other reason for extending was the result of a delay in delivery for the complete bases for the anchor bolt assembly.
Larochelle also pointed out to the Parks and Recreation Committee that the plan is to have the rest of the materials delivered by April 12. He wants the whole project to be fully operational for April 26, so parking lighting and street lighting will be in full effect for baseball games this spring and summer.
J & L believes they will need five days after the materials are delivered to install the field lighting and wiring which puts April 26 as the target day for completion.
The committee continued to address the extension request and Larochelle added that they would want an additional extension up until May 31 so the seeding can be put on the fields.
Parks and Recreation Chairman Patrick Roche then called the extension request to vote. Committee member John Whalley made a motion to reject the request and the motion was then seconded. Following the motion, the vote was 3-1 in favor of rejecting the request.
Robert Levesque of R. Levesque Associates, is the landscape architect for the project, and revealed the liquidated damages that could occur since the contractor’s request was denied.
The damages are a guideline that the committee put into the contract before the project started.
“We had to put a penalty clause in there,” said Whalley, who also created Whalley Park.
Levesque acknowledged that J & L Construction would be fined $500 for every day that the project isn’t completed past the March 30 deadline. Levesque said that if the project wasn’t finished by the end of April, the amount of damages could total around $15,000.
Roche feels that the committee’s decision to decline the extension request was the most logical one.
“They made no attempt to complete it in time in our eyes,” said Roche.
The committee decided to continue the discussion with J & L and Larochelle at their next meeting on April 19.
