Letter: Outraged over school needing new roof

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letters_flatTo the editor,

I was outraged when I read [the Nov. 15] story about Woodland needing a new roof after only 12 years and how it has been leaking since about 2003 or 2004.

The school had only been opened in 2001 and yet no one thought to worry about a leaky roof only two years after the school was given it certificate of occupancy?

Even the least savvy homeowner knows that a new roof should have a life of 25 to 30 years. How did the Board of Education not know this and how did they let this situation snowball into a million-dollar boondoggle that must now be fixed at the expense of the Region 16 taxpayers at the same time that we are building a new grammar school in Prospect?

Who was the inspector who gave Woodland its certificate of occupancy? Did this inspector rubber stamp O&G’s assertions that things had been done right or did this inspector even bother to go to the site and take a look at what the completed job looked like?

The Region 16 taxpayers deserve better than this and they don’t deserve to have to pay for someone else’s mistakes. The Region 16 Board of Education had better find a way to pay for this huge mistake without passing the cost of the repairs on to the citizens of Prospect and Beacon Falls.

Patricia S. Zappone

Prospect

1 COMMENT

  1. Finally, something the people in Prospect and Beacon Falls can agree on with regard to Region 16. Unfortunately, it’s too late to not pass the costs on to us.

    Perhaps we should pay the Million for the new roof in “progress payments” spread over the life expectancy of the roof or its warranty period, “which is typically 20 to 30 years”.

    While the statute of limitations may have passed for this roof, we should certainly address future business with the firms involved. If they are in fact hiding behind the statute of limitations on a roof that should have 8-15 YEARS left on it, Greenwood Industries out of Millbury, Mass., (the contractor hired to install the roof) and Torrington-based O&G Industries (the project manager that had oversight over construction of Woodland) should be precluded from any new work in either town. We don’t need vendors like that.

    It’s also unacceptable that the board did know it had a MILLION DOLLAR PROBLEM. It doesn’t speak well to the communication with or frankly, the caliber of the people the board hired to protect our investment.