HAVRE SCHOOL BOARD

The School Board meet today and Chairman Shad Huston announced that he had a letter of resignation from Superintendent Dave Mahon. A person from the audience of about a dozen people asked what the board planned to do and Shad responded that the number 2 man, Andy Carlson, would handle the Superintendents duties until the board could find a replacement. Mahon’s replacement will be discussed at the next School Board meeting which is January 26 at 12:15 at the Robins School building.

The Corrector learned that a couple of local contractors were in attendance and had some questions about the High Land Park School job but Chairman Huston stated that the board could not respond to questions during the open comment of the meeting but he would be happy to talk to them after the meeting.

The corrector made some calls and discovered that those contractors in attendance were Brad Lotton and Tyler Smith. One of the people we use as a source of information for our blog happened to know Lotton personally and gave him a call to find out what was said. Lotton said that he just enquired as to the bid process as local contractors were thinking it was odd the invitation to bid came from the school clerk instead of the General Contractor himself and just asked that question during the open comments at the end of the meeting. He also went on to say that he only went to the meeting because the contractors he had been discussing this thought maybe the Superintendents mysterious termination had something to do with the building project. The contractors he was discussing this with were going to the Chamber dinner which was also at noon today so he just went to ask some questions to share with the rest of the guys. Chairman Huston discussed their concerns after the meeting. Apparently the letter from the school was just too alert locals that the foundation portion of the job was nearly ready to go out for bids.

Lotton and Smith questioned Huston about building costs and conflicting numbers being shared about town regarding the project. Lotton said they were told the contract was set for a range of between 1.3 to 1.5 million dollars and the total square footage of the building was 9,800 square feet. Lotton stated that he had been hearing that the job was originally to be completed for $110 per square foot which seemed highly improbable to him and Huston responded that the job wasn’t bid by the square foot but the original estimate projected by Anderson was between $144 to $150 per square foot while Clausen’s projections were for $160 to $180 per foot, but the board didn’t make their decision based on square footage costs.

Now isn’t that interesting? On Wednesday January 16th Superintendent Mahon reported to the HDN that bids for the foundation were put out on Monday yet that isn’t quite the truth. The HDN report also stated that the square footage price is currently at $150 per square foot and those prices appeared to be on track. Last week when one of our bloggers talked to a school board member they were told that Anderson had solicited the job with a figure of $110 per square foot. $110 peer foot computes to $1,078,000 and $150 computes to $1,470,000 which is quite a spread and the job isn’t even done with surveying yet. Just what is the truth? Could it be that the school board members themselves don’t have a clue what is going on? Is the sudden resignation of Mahon connected with the Highland Park project? Or is it just his mode of operation?

Something smells mighty fishy here. And speaking of Superintendent Mahon, it is interesting to note that we at the Corrector had no problem finding out tons of information in the Yellowstone Times and the Huntley paper about the building projects undertaken there, including the fact that the contractor hired to ultimately build the school that burned was not the low bidder, but was awarded the contract because (you get this) he was A LOCAL CONTRACTOR! We also learned that Mahon, Dick Anderson, and Nelson Architects were connected in earlier projects in Huntley. Hmmmmmmm