ENTERPRISE — Members of the Enterprise School Board say they’re frustrated with the pace of work on a $4 million bond construction project at the school — and during a special board meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 29, they grilled the project’s general contractor about the delays.

“We have had a great relationship with you though this, but we feel hijacked,” Heather Melville, vice chair of the board, told Dave Rogerson, of McCormack Construction of Pendleton, the general contractor on the project. “Driving by this summer and not seeing 30 or 40 workers out (on the scene) … and we feel like ‘Where did the ball get dropped?’ This project timeline has shifted beyond what the public was told.”

Melville added that the construction scene the week before school started generated a lot of questions from students and the community.

“Granted, this bond project has been pretty up and down with COVID and supply-chain issues, and doubling our roof costs, but we have totally been rolling with that and trying to work so hard with you guys,” she said.

Rogerson told the board that the project has been thrown a number of unexpected curveballs, and that McCormack was dedicated to seeing the project through to the end with a minimum of disruption to students, teachers and staff members.

The project

District voters approved a $4 million bond measure in 2020. The district received an additional $4 million state grant from the Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program, and several other grant s, for a total of $8.85 million for needed repairs to district buildings and facilities.

After a one-year delay on the project due to the COVID-19 pandemic, work was slated to take place over the summers of 2022 and 2023, when students were not on campus.

But after work began, supply-chain issues prompted additional delays for McCormack and its subcontractors, and many of those issues continue to hobble the project.

Unfinished business

Board members touched on a number of items they said need attention as the project continues:

• Work on the roofs must to be completed before winter to avoid water damage.

• The discovery that an electrical vault is in an unexpected location has delayed construction of a ramp into the Quinn Court gymnasium. The Quinn Court ramp is expected to be done on Oct. 1, minus the railing, which will be fabricated in La Grande, Rogerson said. The railing is expected to be ready in mid-November. Melville said the ramp needs to be completely done and ready to use by the time basketball starts in December since basketball is the district’s biggest draw.

• Proper lighting outside the building near the ramp needs to be installed, to avoid potentially unsafe conditions for visitors who are unfamiliar with the uneven terrain.

• The school board’s chair, Mandy Decker, said faculty members were unhappy with the plywood covering the windows in the elementary school. Rogerson said glazing for the windows has been delayed because of supply-chain issues, but plexiglass has been installed to make the windows more visually appealing. In addition, he said, workers planned to paint some of the additional plywood that is more visible to students and the public.

McCormack’s response

Rogerson said McCormack and its contractors are trying to be mindful of completing work in sequence so nothing is damaged by doing work out of order, which could cost the district more money.

He added that McCormack is mindful of not causing unnecessary interruptions for students and teachers and that the company is dedicated to seeing the project through to the end.

In addition, he said, many of the items remaining to complete are things that the public sees on a daily basis. What the public doesn’t necessarily see, he said, are the already finished projects that tend to be on the interior of the buildings.

Phone calls to Rogerson on Aug. 31 seeking additional comment about the project were not immediately returned.