Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

The Haines Borough school board on Monday voted 5-2 to reject a $200,000, assembly-approved contract to replace the heating system in Mosquito Lake School, sending back to the drawing board a project that’s been five years in the planning.

Discussion will continue at a school board workshop set for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 21 in the high school open area.

Members Stacie Turner and Brian Clay voted to approve the contract. Carol Kelly, Anne Marie Palmieri, Nelle Jurgeleit-Greene, Sarah Swinton and Brenda Jones voted against. A state grant was to pay 65 percent of project costs; the district would have paid about $70,000. The board earlier this year budgeted $119,000 for the work.

The Haines Borough, which had signed a contract with Dawson Construction for an electronically controlled, dual-boiler system, will reimburse the contractor for its work to date and will terminate the contract, borough manager Mark Earnest said after the meeting.

Dawson president Gary Hovde did not return messages about the company’s costs to date.

"The school district’s going to take the lead in the next couple months," Earnest said after the meeting, citing a long list of projects that will occupy the borough. The borough had spent about $2,500 on the rejected plan, including the cost of design.

Board members who had previously questioned the cost of the project were bolstered in their decision by testimony from school maintenance man Jim Stanford, teacher Kathy Holmes and heating contractor Leonard Dubber.

They also heard from school superintendent Michael Byer that pushing back the construction schedule wouldn’t jeopardize state funding and that the district could ask the state to change project specifications. (The state approved funding for the project as a double-boiler system.)

Stanford said the design for the project had been rushed, and that elements of the forced-air heating system that wouldn’t be replaced under the project are defective. He said he wouldn’t support putting new boilers in an "antiquated" heating system.

He suggested the district consider in-floor heat and said the school could use a wood-burning boiler as back-up. Teacher Holmes said the district should find a new way to deliver heat to classrooms.

In the current system, loud fans blow hot and cold air into classrooms, she said. "The ducts haven’t been cleaned in 30 years. Allergies are an issue. They’re uncomfortable and noisy."

Dubber, a member of the borough’s Energy Sustainability Commission, said it was disappointing the project wasn’t run through his group. Dubber, who sells wood-burning boilers, told the board the price of oil was likely to climb "to the moon" and said there are "energy services companies" that design heating systems and have a higher success ratio than borough-hired engineers.

"These companies are the professionals," Dubber said. "They specialize in energy. It’s a whole new field."

Borough facilities director Brad Maynard, who oversaw the recent bidding of the project, defended its specifications, saying $30,000 in electronic controls would save money over the existing system, predicting savings of more than 15 percent.

But savings of even 20 percent over the current system would save only about $3,000 per year in fuel costs, said member Palmieri. "To save $3,000 a year, I’d still like to see what other options are out there."

Brenda Jones said she wanted to see numbers to run an analysis on the relative efficiency of the borough’s proposed system.

Maynard said he stood by the recommendations of engineer Doug Murray of Juneau-based Murray and Associates, which developed the project design at the district’s direction. The design also was endorsed by Jim Rehfeldt, a Juneau engineer who specializes in energy efficiency, Maynard said.

school board chair Kelly said she’d like a member of the Energy Sustainability Commission to sit in on the upcoming workshop.

Board members noted during Monday’s discussion the need for assembly and school leaders to delineate areas of authority. The borough is responsible for large capital projects and "major maintenance," while the school must fund routine upkeep and "minor maintenance."

Dawson foreman Les Hostetler said he couldn’t speak for the company but that he personally believed that to avoid confusion by contractors, the authority question should resolved before other large school projects like the old school demolition go to bid.